The tutorial didn't take place in the Floating Islands of Thaloria.
But it was the first destination a player could access after finishing the tutorial.
ELO's tutorial was as simple as it could be.
It taught players the basics—how to move their character with the keyboard and how to use the active skills.
Left-clicking the mouse was for normal attack, while right-clicking was for heavy blow.
Tapping the spacebar was for jumping.
Using the arrow keys should be common sense, but it was also included in the tutorial just in case. As for equipping weapons and armor, the players would have to set their own hotkeys.
Once the player had the controls down, there was one last challenge to clear before moving on.
And that was to defeat a common monster, which was a goblin.
In the game, the number and quality of enemies depended on the difficulty level selected by the player.
Unfortunately, Alex had been forcibly assigned to Hell Mode.
Still, he was a little hopeful. As Dim Dim confirmed, this was now his reality. It was no longer a game. It wasn't like they could replicate everything, right?
That said, the young man courageously scouted the path he was supposed to take, which would lead to the Floating Islands of Thaloria.
'Damn!' Alex cursed internally upon seeing three goblins and a Goblin Warrior blocking his path.
The humanoid monsters had green skin and were three feet tall. They also looked scarier in real life, making Alex feel intimidated.
Suddenly, his Monster Encyclopedia activated and appraised the monsters he was seeing for the first time in real life.
Monster Rank: Rank 1 Monster
Monster Grade: Common
Note: A goblin that you can find anywhere in Arcana. Known for abducting girls of different species to use as broodmares to increase their population.
Monster Rank: Rank 1 Monster
Monster Grade: Common
Note: A goblin who had learned how to wield weapons. An evolved form of goblins.
The young man decided to retreat after confirming that the information provided by the Monster Encyclopedia was the same as the one in ELO.
Right now, he wasn't confident he could fight them. So, he decided to return to his camp first, and think of a plan to get past his first hurdle in the world of Arcana.
After making sure that there were no other monsters in his surroundings, Dim Dim gave him a Storage Ring, which he accepted gratefully.
Alex instinctively knew how to use it the moment he wore it on his finger.
The ring had useful items inside, giving him some confidence that he could defeat the goblins that blocked his path.
'Let's see... a normal sword, a knife, a waterskin to store water, a pouch of beef jerky, a bedroll, two healing potions, flint, and steel to start a fire,' Alex thought. 'Same starter set as the one in the game.'
The young man then glanced at the sun, which hung in the sky, shining brightly above his head.
It was already noon, and Alex was starting to feel hungry.
But just as he was about to eat some beef jerky, Dim Dim approached him and summoned two bamboo steamers.
Each bamboo steamer contained two barbecued pork buns, which made Alex's mouth water.
"Dim Dim!" Dim Dim said with a smile.
"For me?" Alex asked.
Dim Dim nodded. "Dim!"
"Thank you, Dim Dim."
The delightful taste of barbecued pork spread inside Alex's mouth as he savored the food that he thought he would never get to eat again.
He hadn't eaten anything since his arrival in the World of Arcana, which made the pork bun taste even better.
After running around Arcana on an empty stomach, the bun wasn't just food. It was a holy grail.
A moment later, he heard a notification sound inside his head, and a blue status screen appeared in front of him.
— Stamina regeneration increased by 30%
'Oh, so this part also didn't change.' Alex was pleasantly surprised that Food Buffs were also a thing in the world.
However, only special types of food had this feature, including Dim Dim's dim sums.
After eating his fill, Alex opened his Status Page to distribute his Stat Points. Without increasing his stats, there was no way to win against those ugly goblins.
But he was currently in a dilemma. Which stat parameters should he prioritize?
Since he had limited stats, and there was no reset option, he needed to ensure that he would only pick the useful ones in his current situation.
Back on Earth, Alex had been ranked 69 in the Global Rankings.
He had been lucky to acquire a Hidden Job Class called Shield Savant.
As the name implied, this Job Class mutated from the Tank class, which had allowed Alex to play an important role in a party.
Since it was a profession he knew like the palm of his hand, he wished to retain the same Job Class in the world of Arcana.
However, his Shield Savant wasn't any ordinary Tank.
It could shift from defense to offense and become a Glass Cannon as a last resort.
(A/N: A Glass Cannon is a character that hits hard but is very frail at the same time. Some players who have this build usually die after taking a single hit from a Boss Monster.)
Alex had managed to raise his rank with his ability to smoothly shift between defense and offense in the blink of an eye, allowing him to become one of the top players in the game of Endless Leveling Online.
'I need to fight four enemies, so tanking their damage is not ideal,' Alex mused as he looked at his Status Page. 'Glass Cannon it is.'
Available Stat Points: 0
[Difficulty Level: Hell Mode]
Alex added five points to Constitution because he would need to increase his health and Stamina.
Stamina was used in many things, including running and using physical skills to deal damage to the enemy.
In ELO, Constitution and Stamina would always have the same stats.
The only time they differed was when the player wore equipment that increased Stamina or received a Stamina-boosting buff.
The Constitution stat would increase by one point for every five points added to Strength, Intelligence, Agility, and Dexterity.
Since Alex had ten points in Agility, this automatically increased his constitution by two points, increasing his stamina as well.
In order to test whether the Agility Stat worked, Alex ran to check if he did get faster.
'There's a slight increase in speed, but nothing too special,' he thought. 'Maybe this will change when I increase my agility stat in the future.'
Strength in the game increased physical damage and allowed players to carry more items.
Naturally, the higher your Strength Stat, the stronger your character was.
Alex wasn't confident that his current stats would be enough to defeat the goblins, so he decided to use other methods to give him an edge against his enemies.
He only had one life, and there was no second chance.
But despite the fear and anxiety taking hold of his body and mind, Alex also felt excited.
Orphaned from a young age, he had learned many skills, including surviving in the wild.
He had hunted in the past and, with this knowledge in mind, he decided to fight the trolls by using the environment to his advantage.
'It's still too early to give up,' Alex thought. 'If this really doesn't work, I'll just change to Plan B.'
After making up his mind, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulder, putting a faint smile on his face.