Pride Online

“Aright. I think that’s all that we need, Wisana.”

“Yeah, right.” The said boy answered warily as he looked at the girl in front of him who was humming, checking the items they just bought.

“Don’t you think that they are a bit too many?” Wisana asked, looking down at his new friend’s shopping bags. He forced a tired smile.

“No, they are not. I need to stock up on these items for the two of us. It will take a bit longer until we’re back in town again. And your level will be up to at least 15.”

“Really?!” His eyes widened, his feet pacing up to walk alongside Maysa.

Wisana realized then that this would be a long trip when he saw Maysa transferring those items into cards, so they were easier to carry. A pile of items cards that she was re-checking included potions in different colors, different types of explosive sticks, many kinds of angel’s feathers, and other countless oddments.

“Why? You have somewhere else to be?” Maysa asked without looking up from her pretty pink transparent window as she was busy managing items in her inventory.

“Yeah, I have to find a person.”

“Well, we have to go to the capital anyway. We'll find their address from the association of explorers when we get there. Sounds good?”

“We’re going there?” Wisana asked with uncertainty.

“Yup.” She grinned. “You should farm on our way to the capital, Tristan, so you can also register for your class there, okay?”

“Huh? Uh... okay.” He nodded in agreement, even though he did not quite understand what she was saying. He followed his new friend with a grade D ram in his hand. Maysa was so impressive there with the bargaining that Wisana wanted to salute her ten times. He was already okay with the thirty thousand coins the seller asked, but then the girl started talking for like five minutes.

In just the blink of an eye after that, the price was somehow lower to 20,000! leaving the first store he went in in dust!

Moreover, today Wisana learned that the more he bought, the more discount he would get. And price negotiation was a personal skill. For example, in Maysa's case, she used the tactic of calculating back and forth to confuse the seller until he was convinced with her offers. Even Wisana could not see how he made some profit out of their purchasing.

This Maysa was totally a wise ass!

“Hey, May, how do I use this ram?” Wisana asked when they were taking a rest under a big tree, after walking almost 2 kilometers away from the town.

“Let me see it.” Maysa grabbed the ram, flipping it back and forth a couple of times to study it. “Easy. It's a basic item. You can use it right away without any conditions.”

“Huh?” He raised eyebrows. “You mean there’re conditions to use better grade items.”

“Yup.” Maysa smiled. “For example, to use a grade C ram, the player needs to be at least level 20, and grade B rams require at least level 50, plus completing quests, or something like that. That’s all I know for now because there are only a few players that can upgrade their AIs to a higher class than B.”

“Got it.” Wisana softy accepted before he sighed.

Upgrading AI was more complicated than he thought. It was not just having coins to buy these expensive rams, but it also required levels and quests. Sh*t, did he not just promise Jinnie to upgrade her to the max level?

“And what do you mean by 'easy'?” Another question followed.

“Just open that DVD case, and your AI will do the rest.” He nodded at her instructions, opening the DVD case-like item. The second later it just completely disappeared before his eyes.

“Master, do you want to upgrade Jinnie to class D?”

“Sure, babe,” Wisana answered with a wide grin.

“Yes, master. Please wait, ...data download completed. Calculation completed; The new ram will take approximately 2 hours to install.

“2 hours?!” his eyes widened. The next second a tiny window popped up, saying “Installing data, 1%”

“Isn’t it normal? When you update your computer, it can’t be done instantly, can it?” She said.

“So, this means that I won’t be able to use my AI for two hours?!”

“Don’t worry. You still have me, bro.” She turned to give him a sweet smile. Wisana let out a weary sigh. All he could do was to ‘wait’ before he could see Warunya.

“Well, since you have nothing to do, should I lecture you some useful information of Pride world, newbie?” Maysa asked with a friendly smile as usual.

“Fine.” The young man replied softly, not really feeling interested.

“Starting with the information window,” Maysa said, then a hologram window popped up in the air. It was a transparent pink square shape with a 1x4 table on it. its color fits perfectly with the sweet personality of the user.

“What are you waiting for? Open yours, too.” Seeing the other guy gasping for too long, Maysa raised her voice a bit with amusement and annoyance. Wisana raised eyebrows.

“Well, ...how do I open it?”

She laughed at this silly newbie. Instead of giving up on him, she smiled sweetly and walked up to the man.

“It’s not that hard,” she said. “You just have to think about it. Imagining what you want in your mind, and it pops out.”

“Imagine?” Wisana repeated softly and tried to do what she said, then the same hologram window as hers appeared.

A broad smile came across his handsome face after he succeeded in opening his information tap. It was plain deep blue, not like Maysa’s pink floral.

“Good boy.” The teacher complimented. “As you already noticed that our themes are different. You can customize your theme on P.M. later if you want.”

“Um.” Wisana nodded.

“Okay, next, see, take a look into the information on it.” She said as she pointed at the hologram screen. “This is the character information window. It shows your current level, stats, health points, magic points, including abilities and popularity points.”

“So, it’s literally about my information window.”

“That’s right.” He looked down at the window and read the information on it.

Character Information

Player: Wisana

Class: Newbie Adventurer

Level: 5

Health Point: 450/450

Attack Point: 25

Armor: 8

Magic Point: 25

Luck: 40

Seeing the guy was reading, Maysa leaned closer to join him. She finished reading those lines quickly before a faint smile came across her face.

“Even you just got here, you made it to level 5 already.” She spoke.

“Not really. I killed a stupid mushroom, and my levels were rushing up just like that. The game is not all that difficult, I guess.” His words made Maysa pause. The pair of beautiful eyes looked up at her friend like she could not believe her ears.

“You’re telling me that you upgraded to level 5 by killing just one monster?” She asked.

“Yeah, that was the only thing I’ve killed in the game so far.”

“Really?” She shrieked. “What exactly did you kill? People have to farm for days to get on this level. Do you remember what it looked like?”

“Er...” Wisana drawled, his eyes looked up, trying to regain his memories about the monster. “It looked like a huge green mushroom with an annoying face. It always screamed ‘U-GEEEZ’, or something like that.”

“It’s the green mushroom boss!”

“Boss?”

Wisana repeated, tilting his head in confusion. He could not catch up with Maysa’s shocked reaction, yet. He did not realize that she was shocked and curious about how this guy dealt with a monster 30 times higher level. Normally, if the levels were this different, the players would not be able to cause a scratch on it.

In Pride, if players’ levels were higher than monsters’, the EXP would be decreased, according to scales of differences. However, if monsters’ levels were higher, the players’ damage would be decreased to 50%!

When Maysa’s brain could process these facts, she turned to gaze at the guy in front of her. What was more, he beat a super tough green mushroom boss, something that even players on the same level could not do so easily.

This guy really was a true hidden gem.

“…, And I'm still as sharp-eyed as ever,” Maysa said before going back to her spot, leaving Wisana scratching his head in confusion, not understanding anything that came out of the other one’s mouth.

“Here’s my info, Wisana. We should learn each other’s abilities a bit since we’re on the same party.” She pressed on a tiny icon on her hologram before a transparent pink square popped out in front of him. Wisana looked down at the screen.

Character Information

Player: Maysa

Class: Gunner

Level: 28

Health Point: 3,828 / 3,828

Attack Point: 75

Armor: 55

Magic Point: 15

Accuracy: 150

Wisana whistled as he read. No doubt about her level, he could already see it from how she was very expert in the game. She was way beyond him.

“Why are your stats different from mine?” He asked when he noticed that his window did not have ‘accuracy’ stat like hers, instead, his was replaced by ‘luck’.

“Oh, that’s a class attribute,” Maysa replied. “When you first logged in to the game, you already met the NPC that gave you the introduction, right?” The cold face of Ada popped up in his mind right after she finished.

Yeah, he guessed he did meet her walking out of the wall to gaze at his eyes.

“Well, the NPC scans every new player to analyze our abilities, depending on our body structures, personalities, and characters. That's why players have different stats. Our classes and playing styles depend on these stats, too.”

“Oh...” Wisana drawled. “And for stats like mine, what class should I play?”

“Hold on, let me see.” Maysa glanced over the stats in front of her, thinking. “Um, well, it’s really hard to say, Wisana. Your attack points are the same as magic points, this is called the equilibrium. This type of player is hard to predict their play style.”

“Do you know what this luck stat is, May?”