Pantheon Online

"You don\'t know?" Donna\'s surprise was evident on her face. "I thought you would have found them since you were the first one to arrive here."

"What she means is a lot of players worked together to explore the city\'s area close to the arrival point. Most were buildings that could be bought, but one of the groups found a store. The problem is that you can\'t open the door without being Level 3." Beans cut in to explain the situation.

Colt raised an eyebrow at this piece of information. \'Does that mean there are NPC\'s hidden in the city?\' This information seemed to contradict everything that he had observed about the Divine Realm so far, but it intrigued him. \'Still, setting a level limit on entering the store? It seems like another thing meant to push people towards killing each other to level up quickly.\'

Colt thought he began to see the bigger picture of this game. Everything so far seemed designed to incite conflict among the players. For one thing, at some point, they would have to fight over followers. There was bound to be only a limited amount of NPC\'s. Then, there was the fact that it was easier to gain stat points by taking them from someone else.

The only problem with that was that you did not get to choose where to invest them. Which meant that taking this route could leave you with a build unsuitable to your style. \'It\'s not some casual RPG game that anyone can enjoy.\' Colt frowned as he considered the implications of that.

After all, he intended to gather information to sell to the companies and players who would enter the game during its public release. However, most of the players who were willing to spend money on the game usually did not have much skill. They just liked the attention that they gained from possessing the best that the game had to offer.

However, the deal that the two women offered him just now was a good one for him. "That\'s fine. But I need to recover my Health and DP first."

Colt told a half-lie here. His HP was fine for now, but he felt a little uncomfortable with his DP running low. He was hoping that since the women knew about a store, maybe they knew how to regenerate these things. He had a feeling that if he asked for the information that Donna would try to exploit him.

"That\'s fine. We\'re a little low as well. Why don\'t we all head to the temple together?" Beans immediately replied while Donna frowned.

Colt smiled as he agreed with her. Along the way, they killed quite a few wolves by working together. They held up their end of the deal and allowed Colt to strike the finishing blow on most of them. They had made this offer in the first place because only the person who dealt the last strike would gain a point into the Milestone. Colt guessed that this was to prevent people from boosting low-level players.

[Milestone Reached… Awarding +1 Stat Point]

[Wolf Slayer: 20/40]

\'It looks like the Milestone goals double each time you complete it.\' Colt frowned as he began to understand how difficult it would become to gain stat points later on. \'Anyway, I\'ll just increase my Authority again.\'

[Authority Increase Detected… Awarding +1 DP]

[Please choose one spell…]

[(Divine) Minor Luck: Grants a 10% chance of gaining an extra item from all scenarios for 10 mins. Cost: 2 DP]

[(Divine) Minor Divine Arrow: Fast-moving golden arrow. Damage and cost equal to user\'s Authority up to 10 Maximum.]

[(Hearth) Hearthfire: Manifest your Divinity to create a 10m area around you. Allies in this zone benefit from a stat boost to Endurance equal to 25% of your Authority (Rounded Down to the nearest whole number). Duration: 5 mins Cost: 2 DP]

Colt groaned when he read over the spells offered. Minor Luck looked like it was very situational and would be useless most of the time. There was no need to even consider Minor Divine Arrow. \'Hearthfire it is.\' Colt swore as he picked the spell.

He felt like he was going down the path of a support/healer player. Which was not his style at all. However, there was nothing that he could do about it. It was just the choices presented to him. \'Maybe I should search some information on God\'s of the Hearth. It might shed some light on what to expect.\'

"Yo! What you spacing out for?" Donna asked as she finished collecting the loot of the latest wolves.

"Hm? Ah, nothing, I just gained a new spell." Colt hummed as he considered how useful it might be.

"A spell? How\'d you get that?" Beans asked with an innocent face.

Colt\'s jaw dropped in shock! How could they not know? The interface had the information on each stat and what it does. Besides, even though they were streamers, they should make money from gaming. Otherwise, they would not be here.

"How do you not know that? Anyone who\'s played an rpm would be able to work it out?" Colt blurted out.

"Oh, that explains it then." Donna smiled as she jumped in. "This is our first RPG. We usually play shooters."

Colt almost fainted when he heard their answer. \'Oh god, I\'m stuck with total noobs!\' Shooter games these days were highly realistic and relied on a player\'s actual skill with no way to artificially increase what you are capable of through stats or anything. \'I guess I better fill them in….\'