Rebirth Online World

Polymath Redux – An easy guide on how to demonstrate authority as a king
Chapter I

[Hellgana Online].

An MMORPG that captured the hearts and minds of millions of players all over the world, with an estimated total of 12 million concurrent players at any given time. While its combat system wasn’t that different from other games its mechanics and play style were quite revolutionary.

There were no strict [class] systems, a player could choose what kinds of skills and builds they wanted to focus on and train that to customize a unique character. Of course there were several builds that focused on ‘efficiency’ and ‘maximum damage output’ but for the most part the builds were very well balanced and thus many players had a variety of different methods to play.

Though that wasn’t to say that the game lacked a barrier between ‘classes’, a ‘warrior’ could still be differentiated from an ‘archer’ and vice versa. Each skill had a [class level] of a maximum of 200 and on average it took slightly less than a half a year of casual playing to train every skill in a single class. Once you were finished you could then start training in another class to diversify your build, one that either augmented your first class or gave more avenues of attacks by picking a completely different class.

The various classes were:

[Alchemist]
[Magician]
[Necromancer]
[Archer]
[Templar]
[Cleric]
[Warrior]
[Puppeteer]
[Bard]
[Assassin]
[Demigod]

In total there were eleven classes which would take slightly over 5 years of casual playing to reach the absolute pinnacle of the game. A [Polymath], referring to a player who had mastered every single skill the game had to offer. Of course the game had only been out for just under 4 years meaning that there were hardly, if any, players who reached that title, except there was one.

[Mordred]. The game’s first player to be titled as [Polymath], aptly nicknamed the ‘king’. The only player who has publicly broadcasted that he had reached level 2200, the absolute ceiling of the game.

The [Demigod] class was a little special in that it required a player to complete all 10 other classes before being able to unlock it, for this reason it was a little bit more powerful than the other classes.

It was then that a message from a certain player was broadcasted to the entire server, this one message caused thousands of players to come rushing in to meet the player who had broadcasted it.

“[HELLGANA], YOUR KING HAS RETURNED!!”

The cash item – ‘Megaphone’ allowed a single player to broadcast whatever they wanted to the entire server. It was a relatively cheap item so there were many players who just bought these and item en masse and spammed whatever they wanted, to the annoyance of many players.

After only mere minutes of the broadcast the area in which the character known as [Mordred] logged onto was flooded with thousands of players. It was an area covered in volcanoes and magma; they were all here to see their king. Once he had fully loaded into the game the sound of their praises and worship began.

“EVERYONE ATTACK! KILL HIM!”

Yes, yes this was the warm welcome befitting of the strongest player upon his return. From a small glance it was evident that at least 1500 players had gathered around, to which Mordred smirked as he thought, ‘are they underestimating me?’ His screen was flashing violently from the particle effects from the various attacks the players shot at him.

However Mordred knew that he wouldn’t die from something so weak. The corners of his mouth slowly turned up into a devious grin, ‘I think I’m getting high off the sheer absurdity of my own strength’, he thought as his grin completed.

On the bottom left side of the screen he could see the chat.

[Did we get him?]
[We probably did, lol]
[No way he survived that. Kekeke]
[Yeah, even if he is the king there’s no way. Ah~ that was fun]
[Wonder if he’ll ever come back after this, lol?]

They had attacked for a full 10 minutes and were ready to start cheering and celebrating the fact that they were able to bring the game’s most powerful player. Unbeknownst to them, Mordred was unable to hold back his laughter behind his monitor.

‘If that’s all they brought to PK me then they’re in for a nice surprise after this~’, he thought to himself, audibly cackling.

As the mass of particle effects and smoke started clearing out Mordred was able to see small little dots all over his mini map, such indications occurred only when one player had been attacked by another player. The attacking player would be marked with a red dot on the victim’s screen, with this information the victim could either avoid or seek revenge.

Of course to Mordred there was only once answer to his subject’s worships.

Mass annihilation.

When the smoke cleared it was evident to all of the gathered players that Mordred was still alive and kicking.

[What the shit is this?!]
[Oi, that guy is broken as hell!]
[We brought so many people, lol]
[Seriously, GM! Is this allowed?!]
[This is probably just a glitch right? He’s dead and the game just lagged, right?]

The players all stared at the lone avatar on top of a large protrusion of a volcano. They threw harsh cries of anguish, jealousy and admiration at Mordred’s resilience with disbelief.

“THANK YOU EVERYONE! YOUR TOUCHING WELCOME HAS WARMED YOUR KING’S HEART! NOW ALLOW ME TO RETURN THE FAVOR OF THIS MAGNIFICENT WELCOME!”

Once everyone had heard the king’s actual speech over the broadcast they started to flee in droves. They had all recognized what this all meant and were trying to escape from the possible retribution. Mordred raised his hands and started casting the highest level skill, also known as [Hellgate] which was a fusion skill that could only be unlocked after maxing out both [Necromancy] and [Sorcery] skill sets.

The amount of players that had this skill could be counted on 1 hand but because of Mordred’s [LEGENDARY] tier equipment, the skill’s effect was compounded many times, this was the strongest magic in the game. Added to that fact, most of the players who actually unlocked the skill had all quit sometime down the line, making Mordred the only one with this skill currently still playing.

The clouds above started to gather up and turn grey, sparks of lightning arced across and even struck a few people down below, even killing them instantly, however this was still just in the preparation, the real skill would come soon.

There were some players that stayed around to see what was happening, most likely they were new players who didn’t quite understand the situation. Mordred laughed as he continued to read what was posted below.

[Hey, what’s going on? Why’s everyone suddenly running away?]
[Argh, are you serious? You must be a total noob right?]
[Well yeah, I just started a few weeks ago and came because my friend said some fun event was happening]
[Look dude, just run, you don’t want to be here right now]

A loud explosion could be heard off in the distance. They didn’t even know what was happening, but the impact of that explosion instantly eviscerated hundreds of players in a single blast. Where they were was replaced by a gigantic crater. The players who didn’t understand what was going on looked up at the sky and finally realized it, the true horror and might of the player known as the ‘king’.

From the skies large meteors started falling from the sky, normally people would consider this to be a [meteor shower] skill, a high ranked sorcery skill, but that wasn’t the case. There was a reason why this skill was called [hellgate]. At the craters of the impact, several high tier undead minions started to spawn and attacked players. These minions varied from [flaming skeleton knights] to [undead dragons].

A truly horrifying sight.

[Seriously what’s going on?! I’ve never seen this skill before!]
[You don’t get it do you newbie! That’s the king!]
[King?]
[The strongest player! That’s Mordr-]

Before the chat could be finished the players were all killed and sent back to their spawning points far away from the place. After a few minutes of this the place that was packed with thousands of players were now desolate.

‘That was fun’, Mordred thought as he logged off after that considerably entertaining display of power and dominance. Ever since reaching the pinnacle of power in that game he merely logged in from time to time to play around, all motivations of grinding and getting stronger were gone since he was the strongest.

“Well I think that’s enough fun for one day. I think I’ll take a shower and go to bed.”

Mordred talked to himself as he got off from his computer desk. There was going to be school tomorrow though he was contemplating on skipping it. For most students it wouldn’t be good to keep up all night gaming, but his grades were surprisingly good for a truant student.

After a long period of showering he went downstairs in the empty house to check his answering machine. There was only one message but Mordred already knew who it was going to be from, his uncle.

Right on point.

[Hello? It’s your uncle, Jonathon. You haven’t been answering your cell phone for a while so I got worried and left this message. Anyway I hope you’re doing fine, but I’ve received a call from your school saying you’ve been skipping a lot and that they’re getting worried. Well, I understand how you are but I still worry for you so show your face there once in a while okay? Anyway I’m calling also because Christmas is soon and you should come celebrate with my family, your cousins were saying that they wanted to see you as well. So see you soon okay?]

Mordred stood there while listening to his uncle’s voice mail, he gave out a dry smile before shaking his head.

“… Sorry uncle, it’s impossible for me after all.”

He didn’t feel any enmity towards his uncle and relatives, in fact he was thankful that they were so caring, but it’s because of that he didn’t feel right about barging in on their happiness. Mordred’s parents had passed away when he was younger and ever since he had lived on his own with his uncle coming to check in a few times a month.

That was as far as their relationship went but his uncle clearly showed a lot of love for him as well, as a member of the family.

Still, the thoughts were enough for Mordred. After checking his other mails and such he decided to head to bed. However before he could do so a small notice had just popped up on the screen as he was about to power down his PC.

[Welcome to Aria]

After a brief moment the message had disappeared. Curious Mordred checked his PC to see the message again but he was unable to find it again.

“Hmmm? Odd, there’s nothing here.”

He had usually kept his computer updated with the latest anti-virus software so it was doubtful that it was any kind of malware but of course that didn’t mean his computer was completely immune to external attacks. It was a good idea to check just in case.

A few minutes later he had noted that everything seemed to be in working order. No viruses or anomalies, his computer didn’t slow down or have any other weird pop ups. None of the folders were erased or locked out; everything was completely normal. Which actually only aggravated him further as he was unable to determine the exact cause of the pop up from earlier.

As he was about to continue a powerful migraine came over him and unable to support himself he fell down to his knees and placed his hands on his head in pain. It hurt, perhaps more-so than torture, or at least that’s what it seemed like. For Mordred it was as though his brain was literally on fire.

Unable to endure the pain any longer he fainted on the spot.

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