"This is, quite frankly, amazing."
Garrett Marshall, who had selected Hades as his in game name despite the system warning him of consequences, made this comment as he removed his dagger from the head of a goblin that had tried to attack him. Much like Misery, he too had just joined Boundless, and had chosen his skills, Tradeskills, and general direction of development.
The only difference was that he wasn't a member of Umbra at the moment, but that would be rectified soon.
Despite everything, Hades favored the rogue class, playing a mixture of a thief and an assassin. As such, his chosen starter skills were;
｢Throwing Knives – Active skill
Effect: Manifest 10 Common throwing knives with the same numerical damage value and throw them in a cone shape before you. This deals 10% projectile damage per knife that strikes an enemy, and its maximum reach is 20 meters.
Cooldown: 3 minutes.｣
｢Plunder – Passive skill
Effect: Each strike you make on a target has a 16% chance to generate a bronze coin. This bronze coin is treated as disposable money and can only be used for the purchase of goods. It cannot be used for business, investments, tax, gifts, etc.｣
｢Dark Clone – Active skill
Effect: Summon a clone of yourself made of pure Darkness Energy that has 20% of your stats and HP, but takes 200% more damage than you. It can only be used for combat and can only take simple orders.
Duration: 2 minutes.
Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣
Hades found these skills to be pretty neat, especially Plunder. He didn't bother to get Stealth, Assassinate, or any of those typical skills because his bloodline abilities pretty much covered all of that already.
According to Nidhogg, he – Garrett Marshall – had the Serpent God Inheritance (obviously) and the Dark Angel Inheritance most likely. However, Nidhogg claimed that Hades' Dark Angel Inheritance was warped or slightly mutated.
Instead of Telekinesis, Telesthesia, and those other ones, Hades had rather inherited a strange ability called Bewitchment. This was what he used to make others listen to his orders so weirdly.
This was not the same as Mind Control from the Amaterasu Lineage's Celestial Maiden Inheritance – soon to be properly corrected to Light Angel Inheritance – as that one was about using the mind to control the thoughts of another directly.
Hades' Bewitchment worked through words. He had to speak out his words and coat them with a special power for them to infiltrate the subconscious of the target and register on a fundamental level.
As a trade-off for Bewitchment, he seemingly could not access any of the other powers of the Dark Angel Inheritance, so one of his goals in meeting Draco was to find out what the hell was going on.
Right now, though, he took his drops from this kill and jumped onto a nearby tree with ease. Putting aside the stats from the game, his own body was of a different level ever since he had awoken Nidhogg.
Nidhogg's power was Essence Devouring. He could devour the various energies and essences of anything living or dead to strengthen himself, which was Hades himself. So basically, the more things Hades absorbed, the higher his body's power would grow.
The world was lucky that he wasn't a murderous psychopath, really, because if he had chosen to go down that route, only the other God Serpents or the Evil Duo could have brought an end to his reign of terror.
However, in this game, he had far fewer scruples since they were all code anyway. Besides, whenever he absorbed something, his system stats did not increase, yet his body definitely felt sturdier and stronger.
It had reached a point where he couldn't even trust his character sheet anymore to track his power. Hades was currently using a Virtua Helmet as the pods had not officially launched yet. The only reason Umbra and Purgatory had access to the prototypes were due to the special treatment – so as a 'normal' player, Hades was not in possession of bloodline compatibility nor genetic compatibility.
In other words, he would be unable to properly learn bloodline skills via the system and unable to sire any kids in the game. He could use bloodline techniques, but the system would not recognize them nor help him with them. Once he did achieve it, though, his stats would probably change to reflect everything, and he would gain skills relevant to his Nidhogg power that were urgent.
Hades counted his earnings and noted that he had 4 silver and 32 bronze so far. Of that, 3 silver and 99 bronze were from his passive Plunder and the rest were drops or rewards from quests.
Just now, he had finished a quest and was about to turn it in.
｢Clear out the Goblin Encampment – Uncommon Quest
Description: Head out with a team to clear out an encampment of 26 goblins of various ranks and report back to the quartermaster of Glowing Bark Town.
Stage 1: Kill 10 Goblin Scouts. – Complete
Stage 2: Kill 15 Goblin Privates. – Complete
Stage 3: Kill 1 Goblin Mage. – Complete
Rewards: 20 bronze,10% exp, 30 reputation with Glowing Bark Town｣
Well, the quest reward seemed pathetic when you thought about the amount of effort it would take a 5-man team to clear out an entire encampment slowly, as they would have to attract the goblins in batches and kill them.
After all, sieging the entire camp head-on was suicide and only those blessed by the heavens or in possession of a special power could do so, like Hades.
Nevertheless, after a few hours of work a competent team could finish those greenskins off and then return for their individual rewards, right? Right?
Wrong!
The Quest reward was a one time total, so it would be split between all active team members!
That measly bronze, exp, and reputation would be split with all of you, so if it was the standard party of five, that's 4 bronze, 2% exp, and 6 reputation after almost 4 hours of work.
That was unfair, outrageous, and almost akin to slavery!
However, the AI did not care for such measly complaints. Who asked you to be so weak that you needed a team? Why not do it yourself?
If you want to use a handicap, then accept handicapped rewards, simple.
Tsk, tsk, with such cruelty, it was no wonder that the playerbase were still hovering around the early point of Rank 2 after all this time. In fact, even that much progress had to do with Draco and Eva breaking the balance and allowing players to experience things ahead of time.
In the previous timeline, most people would be below the half-point mark of Rank 1, about now.
This Boundless World was much harder than any of those legendary games, Undead Souls or Maidenless Ring!
Anyway, Hades turned in his Quest at Glowing Bark town and got the full reward, though it meant little to him. He was now level 3 and was looking to speed up his growth.
Hades eyed the groups by the side, shouting for teams to go and clear Dungeons. He was distinctly aware that he could likely clear a Dungeon by himself, but he was also a bit hesitant.
Then again, he only did those Quests because he wanted to get a grasp on how the game worked. Now that he did, he felt he could try. As such, he directly chose to enter the nearest dungeon, which was the Fire Elements Cave.
When there, he was given the option between the Traditional mode, the Neo-Modern mode, and the Survival mode. After learning the benefits of the three, Hades ruled out the Traditional and Neo-Modern modes because they were more fit for groups or Guilds.
The Survival Mode seemed to be built especially for those cocky bastards who wanted to grow quickly but didn't want to follow the beaten path, which was just what Hades felt was best on the menu.
He selected the Survival Mode and appeared in a cavern-like area with lava flowing in different ridges and corners. The darkness here was non-existent due to the bright red hue, and Hades was able to see the foes of the first round straightaway.
｢Name: Fire Hound – Private rank monster
Level: 3
HP: 180/180｣
Hades was surrounded by 5 Fire Hounds who were snarling at him with warning, their pitch-black eyes regarding him with hate and killing intent. Hades was not moved by this, rather shaking his head.
'Wasting my energy to fight this trash would not be worth it.' He thought.
As such, he smiled and spoke out, a dark miasma wafting from his body rapidly, covering the entire cavern and remaining stagnant as well as invisible to the naked eye.
"You are in possession of a Fire Core, a rare treasure that will allow you to evolve, but your four brothers are planning to kill you so they can steal it for themselves! Kill them first!"
Hades spoke in that strangely bewitching tone of his that sounded like his voice was coming from the deepest depths of hell, and it made the five snarling beats pause as they became dazed.
Hades cloaked himself in shadow, casually watching as the fire hounds snapped out of their daze and then turned to each other, now aiming their hatred towards one another.
They soon barked menacingly as they pounced on each other, biting, tearing, and ripping. They cast fireballs at one another and tried to burn their own kind to death in a violent brawl that would make most animal lovers faint.
Hades simply watched on, waiting for one of them to be on the brink before he stabbed it with his dagger lazily. Unlike the system's stealth skills, Hades would not be forced out of anything, even if he attacked.
He could remain a shadow and bully you to death as long as he wanted, theoretically. Of course, the obvious limitation here was the usual one.
You could be in the possession of a super ultra heaven-shattering energy beam, but it wouldn't amount to much if you would run out of energy. You'd be like a helpless maiden before the vile Draco, defenseless and unable to resist your eventual outcome.
Hades dealt with the other four in a much similar manner, watching as the last one howled with pride though it was bloody and on the verge of death, only to show disbelief when his skull was stabbed through by the Rare dagger.
It had won, going as far as to kill its own blood brothers for the Fire Core.
So why was it that its eyes were darkening, and its consciousness was evaporating?
Was this a part of the upgrade process, perhaps?
With a low whine, the last Fire Hound fell to the ground weakly, turning into pixels the next second. Hades came out of his shadow form and recovered bloodline energy casually in the downtime the dungeon gave him before the next batch of monsters came.
This time, they had a new variant.
｢Name: Flame Tiger – Specialist rank monster
Level: 6
HP: 1300/1300｣
A burly tiger, with red fur that had flames in its jaws and at the end of its tail, prowled forward coldly as it observed Hades while surrounded by 7 Fire Hounds that howled with menacing intent.
They still deferred to the Flame Tiger though, as it was a higher form of life, obviously. Its strength was enough to beat all 7 Fire Hounds to the ground and carve their stomachs out with ease.
Hades' eyes narrowed as he had yet to fight specialist monsters alone. He licked his lips and raised his danger, entering the shadows as he rushed to the back of the Flame Tiger right away.
The Flame Tiger was shocked by the sudden disappearance of their target, but roared and spread out a wave of fire to force Hades out of stealth. After all, if rogues could simply stealth and stab monsters to death from behind, they would be the lords of this game, not Draco.
However, Hades' shadow form was not 'stealth', and his darkness simply devoured the fire just like the abyss devoured light and life. Hades was shocked to discover that he could absorb elemental energies from foes into his body to strengthen himself, as well as grant a small amount of immunity to that element!
That was crazy!
