Anime Crossover: Master is Not Here Today

"No, Asuna and I are both new players."

"Moreover, I've mostly played single-player games before, and Asuna is experiencing this kind of large-scale game for the first time, so there are still many things we don't understand."

Kirito stared at them in disbelief, muttering to himself:

".real or fake?"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 143. Shock and Intelligence, Add Skills

143.

2023-11-27

He originally thought that, given that SAO had become a death game, only closed beta testers who had some prior information would have such strong initiative.

Even if they weren't closed beta testers, they're at least veteran players with extensive experience in other MMO games.

However, what about a new player who has little experience with MMO games and a complete newbie who has never played games before?

Such an incredible combination far exceeded his expectations, even leaving him somewhat astonished.

Because their teamwork in the previous battle was so perfect, he naturally assumed they were beta testers.

Now it seems that if they really weren't lying, it can only prove that they both have extremely high gaming talent.

Of course, that applies to the situation just now.

Ultimately, the man-eating plants were just a bunch of minor monsters, and the battle just now didn't reveal many details, so he couldn't fully judge the true strength of the two.

But is it really okay to continue like this?

It's important to understand that SAO is now far more than just a game.

And he himself has already experienced profound changes.

The most obvious example is what that guy who calls himself Illegal AI·BB said about improving the performance of monster AI.

During the two-month closed beta test, he reached as high as the eighth floor.

Based on the information he had memorized, he was originally confident that he could reach the same position in just one month after the public beta launch.

For example, in this area right now, he should have been able to complete all the tasks last night, level up to the maximum, and then move on to the next area.

But the truth is, he didn't achieve his planned goal until the morning of the second day after the server opened, which is now.

This change is due to the improved performance of the monster's AI.

Unlike the initial area where yellow-named monsters are triggered, in the second and subsequent areas, monsters are triggered by approaching within a certain range.

Although the current non-humanoid monsters have relatively simple attack methods, they are easy to deal with.

However, if you accidentally attract more than two enemies, they will consciously start to cooperate, making things very troublesome.

Back to the point.

It is precisely because of these issues that he expressed concern about the two men's situation.

However, he quickly came up with a solution that would both improve the other person's survival rate and allow him to repay their life-saving kindness.

"Since you two are both new players, what you lack most right now is information, right?"

He smiled at the two people in front of him:

"As you can see, I am a closed beta tester and have a fairly good understanding of the information about the first level. If you don't mind, I can share some information about the first level as a reward."

"Really? That's great!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka and Asuna's eyes lit up immediately; the information from the SAO game was indeed exactly what they needed right now.

"of course."

"Let me share my map data with you first. It shows the location of the safe zone [Holenka Village] in this area."

While operating the system menu, Kirito continued to remind the two of their steps:

"However, the situation during the closed beta will definitely differ from that during the public beta."

"Furthermore, no one knows exactly how many changes Kayaba Akihiko and that guy who calls himself BB have made to the game, so please refer to them with a skeptical attitude and never take them as gospel."

"Well, we'll be careful."

Fujimaru Ritsuka nodded, keeping his advice in mind.

At the same time, Kirito paused in his actions, looked at the two of them, and said hesitantly:

"Um, sharing map data requires both parties to be friends, so..."

"Let's add each other as friends then."

Fujimaru Ritsuka readily nodded in agreement, and Asuna, standing beside him, did not show any unusual expression, which made him secretly breathe a sigh of relief.

Although Fujimaru Ritsuka and Asuna are indeed very cute, he doesn't want to be seen as the kind of guy who tries to pick up girls, especially since they are his saviors.

After adding them as friends and transferring the map data, Kirito led them towards Holenka Village.

He and Asuna need to complete the quest and change into new equipment. At the same time, Fujimaru Ritsuka and Asuna also need to change out of their beginner armor from the initial area.

On the way, he began to tell the two of them about the information related to the first level.

"Let's start with the intelligence on this area."

"You've already seen the monster unique to this area, the [Man-Eating Plant]. It has two attack methods: whips on its arms and corrosive liquid spewed from its large mouth."

"Besides the most common carnivorous plant, there are two special derivative species, the one that needs the most caution is the carnivorous plant with a fruit growing on its head."

"If you break the fruit on its head, the smell from the bursting fruit will attract all the carnivorous plants in the vicinity, so please be very careful."

"Furthermore, since plant-type monsters don't have eyes, the [Stealth] skill is very ineffective against them."

At this point, he suddenly remembered a question and asked the two of them:

"Speaking of which, may I ask what you chose for your second skill slot?"

In SAO, the initial character has two skill slots, and then one more slot is added every five levels.

Each person's first skill is determined by their weapon; for example, their first skill might be [One-Handed Straight Sword].

However, all the sword skills of the weapon itself are derivative skills and do not occupy skill slots.

As for the second and other skill slots, they include combat and life skills such as enemy detection, stealth, emergency recovery, light shield equipment, light metal equipment, forging, and smelting.

Players need to make choices based on their own circumstances to create their own style.

Incidentally, the skill he chose is enemy detection, which not only improves the player's ability to find monsters, but also slightly increases hunting efficiency, making it one of the must-have skills for solo players.

Upon hearing his question, Fujimaru Ritsuka smiled and replied:

"We haven't made a choice yet."

Since the monsters in the initial area were only for new players to practice on and didn't reveal anything, they decided to make a decision based on the specific situation after arriving in the second area.

"So, Kirito-kun, do you have any suggestions?"

"In this case."

Kirito pondered for a moment after hearing this, and then recommended some practical combat skills to them, such as weapon defense, light/heavy metal equipment, emergency recovery, and so on.

Then, he said:

"However, while the [Emergency Recovery] feature is very useful, I don't recommend choosing it now."

[Emergency Recovery] allows players to immediately recover a portion of their health bar after it drops to the red zone during combat, making it a very useful survival skill.

Furthermore, after increasing proficiency and unlocking the derivative skill [Recovery During Battle], health can be slowly restored during battle, greatly increasing the margin for error in combat.

However, in SAO, the only way to improve the proficiency of a skill is to use it repeatedly.

In other words, if you want to improve your proficiency in [Emergency Recovery], you must repeatedly reduce your health bar to the red zone during battle.

This action is extremely dangerous for SAO, which has now become a death game.

Therefore, on Kirito's advice, Asuna ultimately chose the [Light Metal Armor] skill, which offers higher defensive capabilities than cloth and leather armor, without significantly reducing her speed.

Meanwhile, after carefully reviewing the skills, Fujimaru Ritsuka asked Kirito:

"Kirito-kun, what do you think of [Insight]?"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 144: Decision, Achievement, Completion of the Mission

144.

2023-11-24

"Seeing through? Personally, I wouldn't recommend this skill."

With that in mind, Kirito began to explain to Fujimaru Ritsuka.

【Insight】As the name suggests, it helps players see through the weaknesses of monsters and attack those weaknesses, resulting in additional weakness damage bonuses.

It looks pretty good, but in reality, almost no players chose to add this skill during the closed beta, making it a generally considered useless skill.

He himself also believes so.

Because "Seeing Through" visualizes the weaknesses of a monster, but the weaknesses of a monster are fixed. You can achieve the same effect by simply memorizing them.

At most, during the initial exploration phase, [Insight] can directly reveal the weaknesses of monsters that have never been seen before, saving trial and error costs and time.

Even players without this skill can discover the monster's weaknesses through repeated trial and error; it just takes a little more time.

As for the additional weakness damage, some players have calculated that you must ensure that more than two-thirds of your attacks hit the monster's weak points in battle to achieve a high benefit; otherwise, the overall benefit is not as good as other skills.

Even he couldn't guarantee that he could have such a high weak point hit rate in normal combat.

However, if you only focus on attacking weaknesses, the overall attack efficiency will decrease, which seems like a losing proposition no matter how you look at it.

The only application scenario he could think of for "Insight" was probably in a performance-style BOSS racing challenge, where "Insight" could play its greatest role.

That's all there is to it.

After explaining the general situation, Kirito concluded: