Replica - Swordmaster 4 Defending Dwarf

Finally, he finished training his agility to the max, luckily there isn't something like stamina, or it would have taken him much more time. Not to mention, his sword almost broke, with only 2 durability left, he stopped using it after a while simply because he was too lazy to go back to the blacksmith shop.

Now its time to check his progress with his new skill

[Defensive Stance (Replica)]

Level 2 (56%)

Requirement: Level 1 Intermediate Sword Mastery

Active: Pa.s.sively deflect up to 3 projectiles for 6 seconds

This skill can be leveled up with repet.i.tive usage

Cost: 25 MP

Cooldown: 4 minutes and 30 seconds

Luckily, he has the Sword Genius t.i.tle, which allows him to learn skills 3 levels above his sword mastery, otherwise there is no way he could have learned such an advanced skill.

Now after he finally finished his agility training, and also combined his sword technique with his dodging technique, he can attempt the Expert level again. Although he remembered how easily he was beaten last time, it just made him more excited to try it again.

After choosing the Extreme option, just as the countdown ended, arrows were quickly shot out of the holes, but he wasn't the same as before. In the first few minutes, he didn't even need to use the sword, but after 15 minutes he didn't have a choice. And in the end, even with his sword, he only lasted a few seconds after the timer hit 30 minutes.

Every 5 minutes is a small level, and every 15 is a large one. After he pa.s.sed the second large level, holes suddenly appeared in the side walls as well, and arrows were quickly shot out of them, he only managed to last a few seconds, and even that was only because of Defensive Stance.

He knew his limits, he needed to focus his sight on the front wall in order to dodge the arrows, with his current agility and senses he would never manage to focus on the sidewalls as well, not to mention beating the difficulty.

After thinking about it, he found out that his senses were a bit duller than outside the game, he remembered Odor told him there are hidden stats you can't see in the character menu, his senses are probably related to one of them, he will have to figure out how to increase them in the future, but first he has to finish his current mission, train all the stats to the maximum he currently can.

And so he started walking towards the building with a s.h.i.+eld emblem, he enjoyed the sight of all the trees and plants on the way, he even spotted some flowers secretly blooming.

He liked this sight which was so rare in modern society, he realized that this game isn't just a game to train or earn money, its a second life, and just like it's name, its a replica of the real world. But not the current world, filled with machines and smoke, air pollution and tainted rivers. Its a replica of the ancient world, with wild nature and small civilizations, living in order to survive and achieve their dreams.

He rather liked this kind of world, where you fight with your fists instead of words, without annoying politics and rules that hold you back and prevent you from being who you are.

He spent the way enjoying the surrounding and thinking about his life and goals, he had a habit of drowning in his thoughts, like he was living in his own world. Thanks to that, hours of training sometimes feel like a few minutes to him.

As he reached the building with the s.h.i.+eld emblem, a short muscular man with a long brown beard greeted him, if he had to guess how a dwarf looks like, this would be his first guess "Welcome, young adventurer" he said.

Kyle focused on the man and received some information

[Shane, Defending training inspector of the beginner village]

Level ???

Background: A muscular man with a beard who likes young adventurers, he used to be a famous adventurer but he retired due to an injury

"h.e.l.lo instructor, I came here to train in the way of defense, can you please guide me?" Kyle replied to him, according to the background provided by the system, the instructor should be excited to help him, which will be much better than the poor explanation of the beggar like archery instructor.

"Of course, it will be my honor, follow me while i show you around" said Shane as opened the door and he started walking inside, Kyle quickly followed him, he rather liked straight forward people like Shane.

As he walked inside, Kyle spotted a lot of dummies of all kinds, they looked a lot different compared to the scarecrows in the swordsmans.h.i.+p hall. Some dummies were tall and some were short, some of them had two hands and some even had six, Kyle wad amazed by the variety of dummies, it looked much better than the plain scarecrows of the swordsmans.h.i.+p hall.

"Welcome to the Defense Hall, now officialy. Sadly, you already train in the way of the sword, and I can see that a s.h.i.+eld wouldn't suit you, but fear not. The way of defense isn't limited to s.h.i.+elds nor any type of tool or weapon" said Shane as he proceeded to explain "Defense is an art of many forms, just like swordsmans.h.i.+p, you can defend with a s.h.i.+eld, a sword, or even your fists. And each of these forms has different types of defense techniques, you can defend and then attack, or attack aggressively, because sometimes attack is the best defense. You need to find the style and technique that fit you, or develop them yourself, I have big expectations from you, young adventurer" Shane said and then pointed at the dummies.

"Now that we covered that up, lets talk about the interesting part that you came here for, training. As you can see, there are many types of dummies, some attack in spinning motions, some attack from above and some from below. Gaining vitality points from training depends on three factors: The amount of hits you defend from, the success rate of each of your defense moves and the difficulty of the attack. For example: defending from two attacks with a success rate of 80% is more rewarding than defending from ten attacks with a success rate of 50%. Also, an attack from someone weaker than you will be a lot easier to defend successfully from, so its less rewarding if the difficulty is low, that also works the other way, the stronger your enemy is compared to you, the harder it will be to defend successfully. A perfect defense of 100% negates 75% of the damage, but that doesn't count s.h.i.+elds, they have their own defense values that negate additional damage" Shane explained.

"Well I don't want to bore you with the numbers, so lets proceed to the practical things. If you look to your right you can see many small rooms with a s.h.i.+eld shaped wooden door, they only look small from the outside. After you enter a room you can choose the dummies, their attack pattern and stats, or you can go with the default settings based on difficulty levels, I wish you good luck" Shane finished his long explanation.

"Thank you inspector, the information is really helpful and detailed, with this it will be much easier for me to train fast" said Kyle as he wondered if he could've adjusted the arrow speed in the agility training as well.

"Also inspector, what determines the success rate of a defense?" He asked.

"The success rate depends on many factors: The enemy's position compares to you, your defense's angle, the difference in strength, and much more, normal adventurers find it hard to have an average defense success rate of 60%, so don't feel dissatisfied with your results if you fail at the start" answered Shane as he started walking towards the hall entrance "Farewell, young adventurer, I hope to hear about your adventures in the future" he said, as he left through the door.

Kyle entered one of the empty rooms and a screen appeared before him

[Dummy System]

[Default Dummies (difficulty based) / Customized Dummies]

He picked the customized dummies and selected one of each type in order to test them, he then selected the same agility and strength as his own for the dummies, positioned them around him and chose to start.

As he blocked the first hit with his sword, a combat log appeared and a new entry could be seen inside it

[Defended an attack from a dummy, 65% success]

Kyle was rather disappointed, he expected more from himself, he simply didn't think he could be compared to the average player. But before he could a.n.a.lyze what he did wrong, he suddenly sensed an attack from behind, he quickly defended, he couldn't be so careless to look at the combat log while fighting, luckily it only happened while training.

This time the success rate was even lower, only 58%. Although he was surprised by the attack and wasn't prepared, he didn't want to make any excuses, enemies will surprise him many times in the future and he needs to prepared.

He quickly got rid of all of the dummies but one, and chose an agility and strength of five for it, he wanted to start from the bottom and only after having a success rate of 90% can he increase the difficulty, although that will make his vitality training take longer, having a high success rate was much more important for him, a player with a high success rate can withstand many more hits than a novice player with five times his vitality.

As he trained with the dummy, his first defense was 80% successful, although the dummy was much weaker than him, he was still motivated and kept training.

A few hours later, he could defend against a dummy with the same strength as him with an average success rate of 91%, with his best defense achieving 98%, not to mention he received three vitality points as well. But that wasn't his largest gain, he managed to develop a new skill

[Parry (Replica)]

Level 1 (3%)

Requirement: Level 5 Beginner Sword Mastery
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Active: Parry an attack to reduce 50% of the damage

This skill can be leveled up with repet.i.tive usage

Cost: 20 MP

Cooldown: 1 minute

The skill is just too good, when he tested it, he found out that you could also defend using a skill, so theoretically if you perfectly block an attack with Parry, you will only receive a bit more than one tenth of the damage, and its only at level one. Although it has a relatively long cooldown, with the right timing, it can save him in a dangerous situation.

He could now confidently choose the same dummies and settings he started with, and start the training, well he could do that, but his sword just broke, he was surprised it lasted this long with only 2 durability but he guessed it was because he faced weaker enemies, he quickly rushed towards the blacksmith shop and bought swords with all his money, he prepared to stay inside the training room until he reaches 15 vitality and an average of 90% defense rate, and that means a long time