Although Jin was not forcing anyone into the stereotypical jobs, he also was not going to stop anyone from playing as such. If anyone wanted to equip a shield and sword and wear heavy armour, so be it. However, magic related jobs would be a tough choice at the start of the virtual reality instance.
Compared to the Stamina Bar which the adventurers would have at the start of the Virtual Reality Instance, the Mana Bar would have to be unlocked and then trained from scratch.
That was where the Tricky Shop Of Magic would come into play. They specifically sold an essential item that would trigger the magical essence of the adventurers. Jin had dubbed it as the 'Magic Unlocker' and it was a key that would unlock their doorway to the Universal Pool of Magic.
This magic theory has no doubt been plagiarised by the real Universal Pool of Magic which Peppers had been talking about for the whole of her life, but Jin felt there was no need to reinvent the wheel when this particular pool of magic could be subsequently used as a potential plotline for future events.
For the time being, this troublesome way of unlocking would allow both real life mages and cultivators to start at the very same footing and learn the basics properly. It also gave the mages a chance to try out the skill based job set before going back into the field of magic.
However, casting spells would not be as simple as their real world. In the real world, the mages utilised their mana circuits to store the type of magics they remembered for the rest of the day, with very little free play in their way of fighting. If they chose the wrong spell set for the day, they would have to find a way to circ.u.mvent it with brute strength or scrolls.
In the Virtual Instance, it would be slightly different and possibly more tedious than usual. This was because the number of possibilities was limitless for the melee counterpart and if they were to augment with magic power, most magicians would definitely opt to be a Battle Magus, a person who could wield both a weapon and magic at the same time, augmenting their battle strength if they grinded the Virtual Reality Instance.
So, in order to limit that, the casting of spells would always require a medium. An item that would act as the intermediary between the universal pool of magic and their current Virtual Reality Instance. The power of their spells would be based on the medium of their choice.
Going back to the previous example, if that pencil wielder had decided to use magic, they could use their pencil as the medium to cast their magic. Upon doing so, the pencil would act as the item needed to activate their magic and would give a set amount of durability to do so before it would break. In return, the magic cast would always be 1.25 times the amount of attack power of the item stats being used and that number increases with the proficiency level of the user.
So if the user had a fire elemental proficiency level of five using the standard pencil as the medium, the amount of damage the user could inflict would definitely be more than a user with a fire elemental proficiency level of zero.
All these were created so that magic would not be the most prevalent form of usage and yet people would still use them because their damage potential would be higher with better items. And when it comes to spells, it would be kinda free for all too. The Tricky Shop of Magic would be able to sell certain basic spells but whether the adventurers would eventually be able to turn their fireball into a homing fireball would be based on their imagination and willpower.
After all, the 'Panda Engine' was designed to make the Virtual Reality Instance a very suitable place for users to explore and as long as they had enough time to grind their skills out, their effort would pay off.
As Jin browsed through the Tricky Shop Of Magic and tried the Magic Unlocker, a Panda Paw stopped him from even activating it. His entire body froze for a moment while the Panda that stared at him immediately sent a warning to his HUD to not steal anything.
"Son, I suggest you go to the front counter to update your licence plate after you PAID for the item!" The Panda grumbled at him, before he unfroze Jin, giving him free rein again.
"If you think you are capable of stealing this right under my nose, then be my guest."
"Great, the NPCs and the security system are working as intended! But gosh, the village will be packed full at the start if people are going to enter in one go." It suddenly struck Jin that there would be chaos in the villages given the realism. Unlike the shop instance which he had now, the number of people could be overwhelming if he opened the Virtual Reality instance worldwide.
"The System proposed creating separate instances as has been done for your current dungeon instances. That way, the processes in an instance could be optimised while accommodating a large number." The System reminded him and Rei added that's what they had done back home for the Virtual Reality games as well. All they had to do was create more servers and allow people to transfer to other servers if their friends were not in the same place.
Alas, that was easier said than done.
There was not enough data to justify whether his current scale of a village was big enough. Too small and rural would restrict the population of adventurers coming in and the System would have to create way too many instances for it.
Too big of a village and the place would be deserted once the bulk of the gaming population would leave for the bigger cities. Jin had also considered implementing a sort of progress system, so the village could grow with time. It could even receive more features, making it easier for future incoming players to catch up to the veteran players.
With so much to consider, Jin decided to just pause such thoughts and focus on something even more basic than the village.
The character creation and makeover.
