It was a scorcher. 12 hours in the 105°F sun was rough, but Marcus had made it through. He was tired but content. Why is that you ask? Because he had the weekend off and Monday started his 2 weeks of vacation! It was only 5pm. 'Time to get outta here, hit the game store and pick my helmet up, then go home' Marcus thought to himself.
Marcus made his way to his best up work truck, hopped in it and peeled off the job site. Shortly after, Marcus arrived and went into the game store. Ducking down a bit, Marcus and his 6'4" frame made his way towards the counter.
"Hello sir, what can I getcha today" the attendant asked him.
"Hi. I'd like to pickup a helmet for Rising Heavens."
"Sure thing" the attendant chirped, " although I hope we have one that will fit you sir. Not being rude but you have a larger then normal head."
Random customer "That's what she said!"
Both Marcus and the attendant blushed at that. 'If only they knew' Marcus thought "That's fine. I know I'm bigger then most people so it's to be expected. I'll wait here while you get it" he said. As the attendant walked away, Marcus glanced at her backside. 'Hm not too small but not huge, just perky and bubbly enough. Oh! When she walks it jiggles' were Marcus thoughts.
Looking away he scanned the store, briefly catching eyes with the heckler who just grinned at him and winked as if saying 'i seen what you didn't which Marcus just chuckled at.
Turning back to the counter Marcus realized the attendant was back now with a decent sized box. "Ok sir here we go. A helmet that looks to be big enough for you. Before I can sell this to you though, I need to see your ID as this game has adult themes not suitable for those under the age of 18."
Marcus knodsed and fished out his ID and handed it to the clerk. She scanned his ID into the computer and handed it back while mumbling under her breath, "How can a 33 year old look this good?"
Chuckling he responded. "Years of hard labor doing construction for 12-16 hours a day will do that to ya." The attendant just blushed and finished ringing him up. "Ok sir that'll be $500." Nodding he swiped his bank card to finish out the transaction.
With a smile the attendant handed him his boxes helmet and receipt, wishing him well and winked at him before he turned and left. Smiling he left and headed home. Upon getting home he took off his work boots and went for a shower. A short while he got out and made his way to the kitchen. If anyone had been in his apartment they'd be in for a shock, and an eyeful. Marcus was standing in front of his stove cooking his dinner, steak and potato. The eyeful would be from the fact he was stark naked. Marcus when he's outside is a big strong construction worker, but at home, he's a nudist. That's just how he was raised, same with his parents.
After awhile Marcus finished his dinner and went to his room. Unboxing his headset, a slip of paper fell out. Picking it up he flipped it over and seen the shop attendants name Vanessa, followed by her phone number. He wasn't pretty boy handsome, he was blue collar handsome, he worked hard to keep his figure, and sometimes it lead to nice encounters.
Setting her number aside, Markus pulled out the instructions and read them, followed by him plugging a cable into the wall, then the other end into the helmet.
Laying down, Marcus put the helmet on and pressed the power button to turn it on then he closed his eyes and relaxed. Moments later he was in a endless white room. All he could do here was create his character, which he decided to leave as is, a reflection of himself. 6'4" black hair brown eyes and a medium beard, hell he looked like a rugged woodsman!
After selection he pressed confirm, space exploded and a fantasy cinematic played. 'In all honesty it looks like a beautiful game' Marcus, or Izona as he named his character was named, thought to himself. Shortly after Izona appeared in the village. In Rising Heavens, there were no beginner villages, everyone started off in different kingdoms and villages. Izona appeared in the human kingdom of Ari, a great place to start according to the online forums he had perused.
The city he was in, Basset city, was a medium size. You could do everything from adventuring to being a merchant. However you had to select a class first. There were multiple classes though they were divided into 2 types, Adventurer Classes and Lifestyle Classes. Izona had long decided to be a Lifestyle player, mainly due to the fact that he only had 16 days real time to play uninterrupted. There was a time difference between real life and game. 1 hour real time is 6 hours game time. Once he got back to work, he'd have at max 4 hours of play time a day excluding weekends unless he had to work overtime, so he decides to do lifestyle classes instead.
A cool thing about choosing lifestyle classes was that one wasn't restricted to only 1 class, no he could be all of them. Crafting, carpentry, blacksmith, alchemist, fisherman, tailor, beast tamer. Marcus didn't have to restrict himself to just one.
After mentally deciding to go for the lifestyle classes, his game screen appeared in front of him.
Izona
Class- Lifestyle
Talent- SSS Rank Duplication
Str-40
Agi-40
Dex-40
Def-40
Int-40
LUK-?
Gold-100
'Wow that's impressive' Marcus thought. He was pleased with his stats but really got him was his talent.
Duplication- Can duplicate most things infinitely inside your inventory. Doesn't work on money or sentient items.
'That feels like cheating but I need to test it out regardless. I need to go buy some items from the auction house.' By this point in time, the game had been open for 2 months. Due to work and needing to save up a bit more for the helmet, Marcus was unable to play on launch, then he had some vehicle issues which had wiped out his savings. Only now could be playing the game. According to the game forums, the best place for solo players like him to get ingredients was the auction house. On his way there he overheard many female players complaining about there armor, about how it only covered the "Spicy Bits" and little else and they wishes some tailors would make better armor for free. Looking around he realized this was true. Lots of skin was visable on most females. Putting that in the back of his head for now, he made his way to the auction house and purchased 1 of each type of animal hide and leather that he could afford. Quickly he was now broke, but he could test out his talent.
Summoning his inventory he selected a box, a single deer hide, and urged his talent to activate. A pop-up appeared asking for a number, he jokingly selected 1 million times. Suddenly the number changed from 1 to 1million. Shocked, he quickly multiplied the rest of his materials and made his way to a crafting room.
Opening the crafting menu he selected a blueprint for a pair of leather gloves. He added the materials needed for the gloves, half a deer skin, tanned courtesy of the game, thread And a needle. Checking to see if he missed anything, he selected start.
His body felt like it had been taken over, hands moving on there own as he cut out a top and bottom piece of leather in the rough shape of a hand. Cutting a few more bits off, he then started sewing them up into a proper pair of gloves, before moving them to the next one, repeating the process. He then rubbed them down, smoothing out and cutting off excess bits before seeing the final product and grade.
Leather Gloves- Average. A average paid of gloves. Gives +3 dex to the wearer. System note, craft more items to increase proficiency.
'Ok not a bad start, the more I craft an item, the better they will be. I got 3 proficiency from that so if I make more I'll get better. Let's set this to the side, once I make 100 of them I'll go sell them.'
For the next 2 hours Marcus grinded out gloves, reaching 75% proficiency. It was then a notification popped up Infront of him
-Ding- User has reached 75% proficiency with this item, item can now be automated. Simply select this recipe, insert the materials and walk away.
'Thats neat' Marcus thought, 'i can still auto craft gloves for XP while working on another project, like cloth armor.'
Thinking this Marcus pulled out a bolt of cloth, some thread and a needle. Selecting the robe blueprint, he then inserted the materials and let the system take his body over. Hours later as he was getting tired, he stopped crafting, realizing his gloves had reached max proficiency and was now putting the exp purely into his crafting XP pool. He took 500 pairs of gloves ranging between Average and fine, and 200 robes between Average and fine, and went to sell them to a NPC shop. 'Afterall, who else would buy a noobs gear?" Oh how wrong he was. Noob gear with more than +1 or +2 gear was worth some money, at least 1 silver a piece. Marcus was unaware.
Entering the shop, he realized they only bought items ranked fine and above, so he sold 200 fine gloves and 80 fine robes, netting him 280 silver, a huge amount earned by a single person in a single day! And since his only cost was buying 1 of each material, then using his personal ability, his cost was ONLY 100 copper! It was unheard of. Going back to the crafter he was using at the roadside, he queued up to create 2400 gloves and robes each, before logging off and going to bed, figuring that not all of them would be ranked highly.
Oh how wrong he was.