Bloodlines Online

BLO was a steppingstone for the world, not only in the gaming industry but for many industries.

No one really knows who the first to open streaming cafes was but it was the first step in turning BLO into a massive part of the entertainment industry. When strangers became a rising form of entertainment the Yggdrasil Group made it possible to convert in game currency into real world funds.

The conversion rate was one copper coin to one creddit, the global currency.

To purchase currency Yggdrasil would charge an additional 25% for the creation of the currency meaning collection of the coins in game was the most cost effective means of obtaining it.

The only instances of people truly spending any funds to actually convert into currency were cases of wealthy players or those donating to streamers.

- excerpt from a podcast.

Between rounds of gaining experience and training they would often work together.

The pair would spar and would ensure that their skills were given a proper point of reference.

Eventually they were met by Hope and Shade.

Once they arrived the practice and experience grind was split into teams of two.

Since they had to learn teamwork with one another they split into teams consisting of War God and Hope with the other team consisting of Shade and Belial.

Since Shade and War God were already well established as teammates it would be to make sure that the two could work with the new members.

Shade took time to talk with Belial while they were training.

"We should figure out more ways to work together, we only have the deathmark strategy."

"Well if we work together you should know that I have almost figured out the death mark skill."

"Oh? That's actually cool I wonder if it's possible to learn the skills of other classes?"

Ezekiel shrugged and motioned to the demoness.

"We can ask?"

As they approached they saw Hope and War God leaving to go get more experience.

"Good luck girls, hopefully you find a clue to the door!"

Ezekiel spoke up to encourage his allies while they left, when he turned back to the demoness she threw them some wooden daggers.

"You will both be learning knife techniques, proper form is important for skill completion."

Ezekiel caught his dagger and nodded while looking at shade, then he raised his question.

"Is it possible to learn skills from other classes? I've been trying to make the death mark skill but its not working as well as I wanted it to."

"Huh? Well yeah but you'd have to either have a combo class or a version made for your class."

She soon began to show proper dagger attack forns.

She would show the proper stance to hold the dagger in and they had to return to that stance or she would force them into it.

She would only stop grabbing them to move them into proper position once they fould return to the stance on their own.

After the stance was passable in her eyes she would show them the proper way to strike the weak points of enemies.

She made sure that when they struck the targets they would actually do so in ways that would not risk injury or a chance to be disarmed.

Ezekiel was not very good at it at first as he had only focused on the magical impact of his blade rather than the strike itself, plus skeletons don't guard well.

Shade seemed to be much better, maybe his history with previous vrmmorpgs helped him to learn a few forms.

It took Ezekiel twice as long to get his body to naturally return to the stance that he was taught and even after it took much longer to learn to properly strike his target AND return to his stance properly.

Ezekiel was just not good with daggers.

It would take him hours to actually get any progress and by then he saw the girls returning.

"Your turn to go to the dungeon, how was practice?"

Shade laughed and slapped Ezekiel on the back.

"Zeke sucks with a dagger but we have plenty of time for him to pick it up."

Ezekiel grumbled over this but nodded.

After this discussion they left to go to the dungeon.

While they were leaving their teacher approached the girls.

"You two will be learning proper weapon form and how to guard yourself."

They each nodded but Hope looked worried.

Upon seeing this War God smiled.

"Don't worry I won't do anything to crazy."

"Come learn your proper stances!"

~

In the dungeon Ezekiel was taking time to practice his skills as he had been told, he would only strike when he saw an opening and he would be careful not to leave himself open to counterattack.

His wings used to guard like befoew actually made it very easy to counterattack an enemy.

Since his mana guard could potentially push an enemy off balance he was able to actually strike them with his blade.

The thing he noticed immediately was that if he used a proper stance it actually increased his damage!

Not only was his damage increased but the stamina used per strike was reduced.

He eventually realized that the extra damage he dealt was equal to his agility meaning properly executed dagger strikes added the agility stat as damage!

He now knew why his damage was so inconsistent before.

When they finally reached the door he put his cloak up to hide who he was when they left and touched another rune on the spell circle.

~

Shade felt that the demoness was an incredible asset to them as she taught him how to improve his dagger combat effectiveness.

In the dungeon he saw firsthand that when he used his skills while in the proper stance ut actually reduced the stamina consumption of the skill by a moderate amount!

He would go out of his way to use his skills more often due to this but he still felt like he was falling behind their ally Belial.

He watched as his partner used mana covered wings to slap away enemies beforw stabbing them in weak points.

He even watched as Belial hardly reacted to one skeleton by batting it away with a closed wing and attacking with a backhand stab to the eye before walking away.

The skeleton's head exploded in a burst of black fire after a moment which wasn't shocking but the simplicity of the move made him feel like he was at risk of being a less useful assassin due to this.

His resolve to practice harder was ignited and he began to keep a tally of their kills in the dungeon.

He wanted to eventually surpass the mage in weak point strikes, one shot kills and attacks dodged or blocked.

He knew he had work to do but he would do it.

When they saw the boss door he watched as Belial put his hood on, hid his wings and then touched the door making them both die.

~

Back with the girls they were sparring, War God would strike at hope and hope had to use her mana shields to block it.

She was supposed to learn to counter War God just as Belial had learned to do so with his own skills.

Since she didn't have his 'natural skill with raw mana' as the demoness out it, she had to learn to use life mana.

Although better for shielding it did actually make things harder as life mana was tougher to mould into shapes.

She had to actually infuse her wind element just to make it easier but she felt that she could go even further if she added the third one.

With the next strike at her body Hope created a shield made from her life mana, her wind mana and her light mana.

The result was a shining barrier that upon being struck had blown War God away until she almost lost her weapon, the shield upon being struck had also flashed a bright light that blinded War God for a moment

This combined effect was how she almost lost her weapon by simply being blocked by a shield.

~~~~~~~~~~

Spell Learned- Blinding Vital Storm Barrier lv1 (E)

When an opponent strikes this vitality infused barrier they will be blinded by a burst of light that distracts from a wind pushing their weapon away.

~~~~~~~~~~

A new spell! She made a spell!

Hope was so excited that she didn't even help War God at first but soon she went to help her sit down and blink the spots away.

"So you have light mana Rabbit Kin? You should hide it from others so the church does not pursue you."

Hope nodded and began to practice her new spell again and again.

This spell would help ner in the future and she knew it.

She would turn this spell into a shield that caused significant debuffs for attacking her so that she would never be in danger again!