Game’s Dogma

​​​​​​​‘Bandaging. As wanderers travel across the continent, they learn the basic way to treat wounds after getting injured countless times. Cast time: 10 seconds.

Level 1 effects: Recovers 5 health per second, lasts for 20 seconds. Removes all negative effects.’

Drako Yau was rendered speechless as he glared at his skill tree. What kind of hidden class was this!

He was still mad, but emotions aside, he resigned to the fact that the Bandaging skill was actually somewhat useful and invested a skill point into it.

‘Eh?’ After he clicked it, he noticed the increment in the skill’s effects.

‘Bandaging. Level 2 effects: Recover 7 health per second, lasts for 20 seconds. Cast time: 9 seconds.’

The one second decrease in cast time caught his eye. If he added 10 skill points to Bandaging, would that mean he could use it without any cooldown?

Quickly enough, he suppressed the impulse within his mind.

The next skill would be unlocked upon reaching Level 10. If it was a very powerful active skill, he would really regret it because he wouldn’t have the points to max the skill out. He could deal with pretty much anything with just basic attacks before progressing his class anyways.

There were daily limits for clearing dungeons: Easy could be cleared five times a day, four times for Normal, and thrice for Hard. After using up the daily quota, players had to wait until 8 am the next morning for it to refresh.

After assigning his attribute points, Drako Yau dove straight back into the dungeon and started clearing the dungeon in all difficulties. This time though, he did not set any new records. After learning Bandaging, he would casually heal himself up whenever he got hurt, then head off when his body was back in perfect condition. No rewards were given for breaking his own record anyways—he had tested it out already.

By the time he cleared the dungeon to the point where he could only challenge the Hard difficulty one more time, it was already half past ten at night.

He was currently Level 9. The Blazing Cave dungeon was designed to be cleared in parties, and only players over Level 10 had the ability to solo the dungeon. Yet, Drako Yau was clearing the dungeon alone well below Level 10, gobbling up all the experience that was meant to be distributed to a whole party. Of course he’d be levelling up like crazy, but that was until he reached Level 10 anyways.

‘Gahhh!’ The elder roared in bitterness and fell to the ground again, dropping a handful of gold coins and a Level 9 uncommon staff to the ground, but there was no sign of the weird stone.

At the same time, a pleasing sound rang through his ears. He had reached Level 10! Quickly stuffing everything away, Drako Yau left the dungeon and opened his skill tree.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding…

The series of notifications shocked him. One, two, three, four…

The skill tree suddenly revealed over ten skill slots, startling him for a second, but when he had a good look at them…

‘Sword Mastery. Raises your understanding of the way of the sword. Increases attack by 1% when using longswords.’

‘Katana Mastery. Raises your understanding of the way of the katana. Increases attack by 1% when using katanas.

‘Greatsword Mastery. Raises your understanding of the way of the greatsword…’

‘UGH!!!’

Drako Yau, who was usually calm and composed, almost lost it thanks to the thrilling roller coaster. He had thought that his sufferings were finally over and he would be rewarded for them, only for more sufferings to turn up.

A whole dozen passive skills, each corresponding to a particular type of weapon!

He calmed down after roaring angrily for a while. Staying angry wouldn’t help, so he could only accept it as his fate.

‘Increases attack by 1% when using spears… 2%... 3%...’

Spear Mastery flashed as he added eight skill points to it in one go, increasing his attack when using spears by nine per cent. He then spent the last point on Might which increased his basic attack by 10 per cent.

Looking further down the skill tree, it was as empty as it could be. It meant that before reaching Level 20 and progressing his class, he would not unlock any additional skills. He had no active skills that dealt damage before class progression. Not even a single one!

Drako Yau breathed a long sigh. He knew the two major reasons why he could fight Zephyrwolf’s party all on his own. The first reason was that his spearmanship and martial arts were far superior, and the second was that the game was still in its early stages. Most players had yet to learn many of their high-damage special moves, and Drako Yau took advantage of that. When they started learning those skills, using a skill would deal more damage than three or four of his basic attacks. At that time…

He shook the thought out of his mind. There wasn’t much he could do about it right now, so he would deal with it when the push came to shove. He gritted his teeth as he cursed, ‘Better give me some active skills after my class progression dammit.’

A girl was looking around near the entrance to the Blazing Cave, checking the levels of other players as she did.

Level 9… Level 8… Level 9…

The girl searched anxiously, but given it was already half past ten, most students had gone offline for school the next day, while most adults were already in groups, hunting monsters or farming the dungeon. The rest were players that were left behind due to their low level and poor equipment, many of whom were strolling near the dungeon entrance, hoping kind players would let them into their teams and carry them.

Hugging her staff with both arms, she wiped away the sweat and replied to the people in her party chat, ‘I… I can’t find anyone.’

Silence ensued in the party chat. Finally, someone said, ‘Then it can’t be helped. If we really can’t find anyone, let’s just give it up and stop wasting time. It’s better to fight monsters in the wilderness.’

His opinion received words of approval from the other two people in their party. While they also really wanted to try out Hell difficulty, they had no choice if they couldn’t find anyone suitable.

‘I’ll look again’, the girl responded.

‘UGH!!’

A roar filled with rage came out of the blue, scaring a bunch of players and the girl.

Everyone turned to look at the source of the sound. A player who wore a crimson mask sat there on the ground and scratched his head like crazy. While his expression was hidden by the mask, it wasn’t difficult to imagine his exasperated look beneath it.

The girl checked his information before she knew it.

‘???’

His level, name, and everything else all returned as question marks, but the girl had sharp eyes and immediately saw that the man was fully equipped with uncommon items. She then looked at herself who was still wearing a piece of common equipment.

Hesitating briefly, she made up her mind and ran over to the man upon realising her party members were doing a final countdown.

‘Excuse me…’

A bit surprised, Drako Yau closed his skill tree interface and saw a cute girl standing in front of him. She was clearly looking at him with a bashful look.

‘Um, sir, if you don’t mind…’

He sized up the girl whose ID was Scaredyface. She was probably a teenager around 16 years old; he could guess because players couldn’t change their looks in Real World.

‘What’s the matter? I’m afraid I don’t know you.’

Drako Yau turned off the voice settings, meaning whatever he spoke would be inaudible to other players. Instead, he used the speech-to-text system, and a speech bubble was now hovering above his head.