Caelus Online

6. What? Cake?

“Also, I forgot to ask, but what about my character's race? Since we had to skip the character's customisation, I never had the chance to select anything…”

Hearing Chester’s question, Fortuna nodded her head in understanding and answered.

“That is something you will find out in time, but you don’t need to worry for now, you will have a high affinity to magic, so you won’t face any issues.”

With a look of contemplation, Chester mulled over Fortuna’s words and decided to think about it later.

Fortuna cleared her throat and moved on to the next step.

“So, next is your character name. Oh! Just for reference if you wanted to keep the same name, your name on Earth has been changed to Aurora.”

Hearing Fortuna’s revelation, Chester held his head in his hands.

“I don’t know if I should be feeling happy that you gods were so well prepared or utterly distraught…”

Looking at Chester’s pitiful figure, Fortuna tried to raise his spirits, speaking in a tone containing a hint of excitement.

“Would it make you feel better if I said that I picked out your name?!”

“No. it would not. It’s the fact that having a name like Aurora once again drives home everything that’s happening.”

With a slightly disappointed look that she didn’t get a compliment for her effort, Fortuna brought them both back on topic.

“So, will you stay with the same name for your character or choose something else?”

Getting his mind back onto the topic at hand, Chester rested his fist on his chin, deep in thought. After a minute, he finally answered.

“A slight change will help conceal my real-life identity for a time, so I will select a different name for in-game.”

Falling back into his thoughts for a short time, Chester let his memories drift back to the female characters he had created in the previous MMOs’ he played, searching for a suitable name.

“In one of the previous games I played, I had a female Valkyrie character that I named Astaria… let's go with that.”

With a nod in approval of Chester’s choice, Fortuna once again snapped her fingers and all the class icons vanished.

“So, a few points you should know before you get going. Firstly, you will be stuck in the game for 3 days while your body and soul are modified.”

Crossing her arms, Fortuna continued, her serious aura finally feeling quite imposing to Chester.

“As I said earlier, you don’t need to worry about your life outside, everything has been sorted for you, the only thing will be taking over your family and its assets.”

Sighing, Chester exasperatedly retorted.

“For the third time… I should receive an award.”

Stifling a laugh, Fortuna suppressed her outburst and finished off her parting advice.

“You should also be careful for the next 3 months, you will understand why when you return.”

Saying so with a wink, she put her hands on her hips.

“Well, I shall be leaving, so enjoy your second chance! Oh, and time here has been paused for you, so you don’t need to worry about starting late.”

“You could have said that sooner!” Chester exclaimed, exasperated that he could have taken more time to deal with this roller coaster of emotions and life changing events before having to rush around the world of Caelus Online.

Flapping her wings, Fortuna started to ascend.

“May the blessings of fortune be with you.”

With those parting words, Chester’s vision turned black again.

After experiencing another short period of weightlessness, Chester opened his eyes. He found himself standing in the middle of a large medieval village, comprised of a large number of wood log cabins. There was a scattering of trees around the crude wooden wall that Chester could see in the distance. Looking around, he could see a number of villagers going about their daily work, one middle-aged man was chopping firewood, while another older man was sitting on a barrel behind his market stall smoking his pipe.

A nostalgic feeling washed over Chester, along with a slight stumble.

Wondering why he lost balance, Chester looked down to see his, now her, chest. Two bumps protruded from his chest. Seeing this, his mind went blank. He could somewhat escape the reality of his situation before, but now fully experiencing everything, the reality struck and there was no easy way to avoid it.

Muttering in a sweet, melodic voice tinged with sadness, Astaria expressed her condolences to her fallen comrade.

“It was an honour, little brother. May you rest well.”

Heaving a heavy sigh in resignation, something that had now become commonplace since she entered the game, she looked at the notifications that had popped up in her vision on a blue screen with a white border.

[Congratulations, you have received the - Blessing of Fortune- Luck stat increased by 500]

Seeing this, a beautiful smile appeared on Astaria’s lips. The luck stat in Caelus Online was incredibly hard to raise. Outside of hard-to-produce potions which grant a temporary and tiny increase in luck, you can gain a few luck stat points from gaining titles, from quest rewards, and wearing incredibly rare equipment.

Astaria with a satisfied and a beaming smile, moved on to the next notification.

[Congratulations, you received the title - The First Immortal Warrior-]

[{Title description: you are the first player to log into Caelus Online. Reward: Slice of Cake}]

Seeing the notification, Astaria first asked herself how she was the first player to log in, then she realised that her time in the character customisation was all done within seconds in real-time. However, after seeing the title's description she tried to stop her eye from twitching out of indignance.

Titles come in two types, standard titles which were awarded to players for achieving a certain feat available to most, if not all players, and unique titles which were awarded to players usually for being the first person to achieve something or for completing something most players were unable to. Unique titles like -The First Player- types usually gave small rewards like a few stat points or a useful item like a health potion, however, Astaria had never seen something so useless as ‘a slice of cake’ as a reward.

Using her mental controls to dismiss the other notifications which were welcoming her to Caelus Online and prompting her to start the tutorial, Astaria opened up her inventory where she could see her beginner’s equipment pack alongside the other Forerunner Edition bonuses. Clicking on the cake, she read the description.

[A slice of cake from the Cats Paw Bakery in the Calesian Empire's Capital City]

After reading the description, while still baffled, Astaria was actually quite happy with the reward. While it was not exactly a useful reward other than satiating her hunger, the Cats Paw Bakery produced the best confectioneries in the game. Previously she had visited the bakery once when she was in the Empire’s Capital City, but never went again due to the large queues of players and NPC’s that always haunted the bakeries doorstep.

With her curiosity sated, Astaria looked around to try and find somewhere to sit and sort through her character information and inventory.

Spotting a crude bench made from a log with its top surface cut away to form a flat seat, she made her way over. Now noticing her presence, some of the NPC’s looked her way, their eyes drawn to her unusually beautiful figure.

Hearing a few gasps of awe, Astaria glanced around and caught some of the villager's reactions. Internally sighing, she tried to ignore the attention and focused on her balance as she tried to get used to her new body while walking and not landing face-first on the dirt road.

Safely making it to the bench, she sat down and opened up her Character Status Page.

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[Astaria]

Class: Mage - Lv: 0 - 0%

Race: ???

Gender: Female

Age: 20

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HP: 150

MP: 200

Fatigue: 0%

Hunger: 0%

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Skill Points: 10 - 0%

Attribute Points: 10

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[Attributes]

VIT: 15

STA: 10

DEF: 10

STR: 10

AGI: 20

DEX: 10

INT: 20

WIS: 20

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[Equipment]

Common Shirt

(N/A)

Common Trousers

(N/A)

Worn Leather Boots

(N/A)

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[Resistances]

(+ To Expand)

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Charisma: 10

Luck: 550

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Karma: 100,000

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[Skills]

Staff Lv 1

Short-sword Lv 1

Magic Arrow LV 1

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[Titles]

-The First Immortal Warrior-

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Looking at her stats, it mostly looked as she expected. Firstly, between all of the different races, all the base stats were around 10 with a slight discrepancy of 20 points which will have been allocated depending on the race’s characteristics. For example, an elf would start with 16 points in DEX and 17 in INT and WIS, while the rest were at 10, while a dwarf would have 16 points in DEF and 17 in VIT and STR while the rest were at 10.

Thinking about the fact that she had 35 additional points instead of just 20, it was clear that the body the gods had created had some sort of innate benefit or it was because of her unknown race.

“Huh… this sort of stat advantage should not appear for a couple of weeks.”

The only way in the first 3 months to gain additional stats points outside of levelling up and general quests was through gaining unique titles or through unique quests. Each unique title that provided stats was hard to achieve while unique quests were hard to find. So, to have 15 more stat points by the two weeks was equivalent to 5-7 titles or quests.

It was unlikely that Astaria would gain any other benefits like this before the Great Upheaval arrived as the game was inherently balanced, with the main advantages coming from having a higher level, using better equipment, and being more skilled.

Thinking back to her stats, she was quite pleased. Astaria’s INT or Intelligence increased her mana pool by 10 for every point added, and WIS or Wisdom increased her spell damage, power, and range. As a mage WIS and INT were her main stats, so for them to have 20 points already was an incredible start.

The additional AGI or Agility helped Astaria when using her staff and sword in close combat, while the additional VIT or Vitality would give her a little more leeway in how reckless she could be while fighting being able to take more damage before dying.

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