Now that I’ve finished what I wanted to do, trying and testing the Mad Rat’s persona, it’s time to look at the pyer level up rewards.

  “The 500 cp is self-expnatory. In fact, I’ve already spent them to create the Mines and Farms. And the same with the two Stasis chambers. I just need to put them in the boratory and everything is done. The other two rewards, though…”

  The first is unlocking the creation of new champions. This means that I can now create a new champion that has the characteristics that I want. But I still need everything that a normal unit would need. This means it costs the same cp, and also consumes the bodies of the units needed for the creation.

  “But at least for now I’m going to stick with the Mad Rat, so there’s no reason at all to create another champion. More importantly, I remember the game telling me about the possibility of upgrading the champions in the future…”

  And the second one is unlocking the Dungeon Battle Challenges. This means that from now on I can send challenges to other pyers, and in the same way, I can start receiving the challenges from other pyers.

  To send a challenge, you need to know the pyer’s name of the target, or at least the dungeon’s name. In the challenge you can also specify the battle rules you want the match to have, or leave as much as you want bnk and then the other pyer can set them before accepting the match. Of course, you can decline challenges from other pyers.

  “Maybe it is blocked until you reach level 2 so that noobs don’t get dragged into troll’s schemes. Anyway, I’m not in any hurry to start sending challenges. Apart from sending a challenge to Ricard, I don’t even know to whom I could send them…”

  After reviewing the rewards, the only remaining thing is to put the two new stasis chambers in the boratory, together with all the others.

  “Ok, enough gaming for today. I still have to do some work for tomorrow’s csses.” I say as I exit the game.

  When I take out the VR helmet, I receive a message. It is a warning I have set for when somebody comments into one of the videos I’ve uploaded. You know, the ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’ and the ‘Whac-A-Zombie’ videos.

  It is a lot of coincidence that the arm sounded just at the same time that I disconnected from the game. So I open the comments screen and see… that there isn’t one comment, but a continuous stream of them.

  “Wow! Isn’t it a bit crazy? The ‘Whac’ video has more than 100k views! I only uploaded the video the day before yesterday and I’m not famous nor have thousands of followers… how can this be?”

  I start reading through some of the comments.

  ‘Hahaha, gotta whack 'em all!’

  ‘It’s a nice way to farm some cp!’

  ‘Who cares about cp? The whacking streak is the important part!’

  ‘Nice streak there, but I’m going to get a better one!’

  ‘Poor zombies, couldn’t get out of the ground…’

  ‘For those interested, the dungeon is called ‘Zombie Apocalypse’. Follow me and you will see a better whacking streak!’

  ‘Me too! I’m going to beat you all!’

  ‘Noob! You’re only lv 1 haha you say you gonna beat us?’

  From here on, it basically turns into a chaotic mess of messages, where pyers say they are going to get the best whacking streak, compete for who got the longest streak, and call noob (and way worse things) to one another. There are also a lot of people sharing links to their ‘best whacking streaks’.

  “Hmm… so pyers are competing for who gets the longest whacking streak… Basically, they consider the streak finished when the first zombie manages to get out of the ground.”

  By the way, it looks like I got one of the longest whacking streaks. Because I did it during a Dungeon Battle, the zombies were closer to one another than in the actual Zombie Apocalypse dungeon. You can say I was pying in easy mode.

  Out of curiosity I watch some of the videos. It’s quite funny to see everybody compete at smashing the zombies. I even find a ‘best whacking streaks ranking’ in the Dungeon Masters Arena forums that’s being updated in real time. I watch the video of the pyer in first position.

  In the video, the pyer is smashing zombies with an actual wooden mallet. And the video is edited so that every time it whacks a zombie, it makes the same funny noise. The pyer is using a troll champion and the image of a troll smashing zombies is quite spectacur.

  “Enough fooling around! It’s time for homework!” I say. I must stop myself before I start watching even more videos.

  *Uaaaaah* I yawn. It’s early Monday morning. It’s time to wake up and get ready to go to college. But I don’t really want to go to the css where we’re treated as nursery school children. It doesn’t help in getting the motivation to wake up early.

  I slowly get up and dress. Then I prepare everything I need to bring with me and go to eat breakfast.

  “Good morning!” I say as I sit at the table. It looks like we’re having toasts for today’s breakfast. I already have two toasts in front of me.

  “Good morning.” Answers Marta from my right. She is my older sister, one year older. We have been very close since we were kids, but nowadays it’s more like 50% love and 50% hate. I didn’t get insulted first thing in the morning, so it seems that right now is the 50% love part.

  It’s funny that we both have always pyed together, arguing over who was better in games, because we liked the same types of games. In fact, she is, too, pying DMA. But she started pying in the beta version of the game, and is now one of the top ranked pyers in the Dungeon Battle rankings.

  “You know what? I uploaded a video three days ago of me pying DMA, and already got 200k views! I’m going to be famous soon at this rate!”

  “Hah! As if a single video will make you famous...” She replies.

  “Well, maybe a single one no, but if this continues with my next videos…”

  “You know how hard it is to get noticed in a game with so many pyers? Unless you reach a pce like mine in the rankings you aren’t going to get many followers!”

  It’s true that she has a lot of followers, because she is one of the best pyers in DMA. But this doesn't mean that she is the only one that can be famous.

  “Uhh… Don’t be like this! Maybe even you have seen my video! It’s the one called ‘Whac-A-Zombie’! The one with the man-rat smashing zombies before they can get out of the ground.”

  “That video? I’ve seen it… That was you…? Don’t you have any shame behaving like a little kid? And so what if you got some viewers and some crazy pyers are imitating you! As soon as they get tired of imitating your video, they will forget that you ever existed.”

  “You only say this because you are jealous that he got noticed so early when it took you months before people started paying attention to you!” Cra, my little sister, sitting right in front of me, verbally attacks our older sister. “And also you hate that pyers are imitating him instead of you! You want to belittle him as much as possible so that he is never more famous than you. You know, smash it before it grows!”

  Ack! You had to go and finish it with a powerful jab! Oh, no! I can see Marta’s brow has started to twitch. It seems we are going to see the 50% hate part right now… The weird part is that it wasn’t me who said those things, but it’s going to be me who receives the wrath of the ‘dragon’.

  “Aargh! Cra, why do you always have to defend Andreu? He can’t do most things properly and still likes to behave as if he were a little kid! Aren’t you annoyed at his antics? How can you still cling so much to him? This stupid, annoying and childish brother of us, who can’t do most things without help… And you always support him!”

  “Even if he is stupid, annoying and childish, I still prefer him over you, who are always thinking you are the best!”

  Yep, it’s me who gets hurt. We have a saying that goes like this: two were fighting and the third was hurt. A perfect example of it.

  “Stop arguing and prepare to leave or you’ll be te!” Interrupts our mother, being fed up with our discussion. Also, she is right about being te.

  I finish my toasts, get my things, and leave home before either the dragon or the little sister strike again.

  “Hey, Ricard! Good morning!” I met Ricard at the college gate, so we are walking to css together. “Have you seen the video I filmed the other day? It already has more than 200k views!”

  “Good morning! Huh… the ‘Whac-A-Zombie’ one? Yes, I did. In fact I am one of the pyers who has made a whacking zombies video too, you know? The st time I looked at the rankings I was in the top 10. 8th position to be exact.”

  “Ahahaha! So you are one of the imitators!”

  “Imitators? Well, you call us like that… but if I had a better whacking streak than you, can you really call me an imitator?”

  “Of course! You did it after I did, so you will always be the imitator! Not that I care though, I just uploaded the video because I thought it was fun.”

  “Aha… And, how is your dungeon going?” He smiles at me. His eyes start to shine with dangerous light. “Do you need my help and advice to help you get outside of the noob level range?”

  “I don’t think I need it. It’s going fine for now. I’m already level 2, and have already created my first Hybrid! Not only this, when I have the required resources I’m going to start with the creation of the second unit type: the Siamese.”

  “Hoh, it does sound quite amazing for somebody that has been pying as the Flesh Monstrosities for only a week… Before you start creating a lot of units, consult with me on good combinations! I know all the skills and units in the game, so you only need to ask and I will guide you towards the best combinations!”

  “I’m sure you will, Ricard.” I reply. But I don’t say the continuation of the sentence, which goes like this: ‘but I’m too scared to ask because you will spend an hour talking without stopping, or even more time than a single hour’.

  Ricard looks at me and says. “So, how close to level 3 are you? Because once you reach level 3 you unlock the multipyer modes. And then we can py together and invade longer and more dangerous dungeons for better rewards! Also, both my undead and your faction need to dive into dungeons where the units are alive (no constructs or undead) to obtain our special resources… so it's a win-win!. And we’ll go to the most poputed dungeons so I can get lots of souls for my undead legion while you get bodies for your dungeon! Yes, something like a human city would be nice…”

  “Wait wait wait!” I interrupt him. “I’m fine with pying with you and diving into the same dungeon, but we won’t be going into a human dungeon!”

  “B-but! Why not!? It’s the best pce to farm souls! And you can also capture them!”

  “Maybe for you it’s the best option, but I use the units I capture to create my units, ok? And human units have no innate skills, so I’m not going to use them unless they are the only option I have. I don’t mind going to any other faction, but humans are a no-go! This isn’t negotiable!”

  “Fine…” Says Ricard. He is sullen right now.

  “Also, I don’t know why you want to go against the humans so much. Can’t you farm souls on most other vanil factions like the elves, dwarves and orcs?”

  “Because it’s a problem of efficiency! EFFICIENCY! Don’t you understand?”

  Ughh… the truth is that I don’t. Well, I understand the concept, but why does he care so much? Don’t you py games to have fun? Why should I care for efficiency?

  “...efficiency?”

  “Yes! Efficiency! When you dive into a human dungeon you obtain about 10% more souls than in any other dungeon! So this means you progress 10% faster and you can do a lot more things in the long run! This is the proper way to py games! To obtain the maximum results with the minimum cost!”

  A little bit fanatical, aren’t you?

  “But don’t you py games to have fun? If you can only invade human dungeons because of efficiency, won't it get boring over time?”

  “Boring? How can you get bored when you can upgrade everything 10% faster and sooner?” He answers.

  “It seems we can’t reach a compromise with this…” I say. We aren’t getting anywhere with this. “Then you can take the times we py together as a holiday from your normal schedule and have a taste of other factions. Because I’m sure all dungeons you ever invaded are from the human faction.”

  “Nuh-huh. You are wrong. Only 97% are from the human faction. Do you think I’m that crazy!? Of course I’ve invaded every faction at least once! A true game completionist can’t stop himself from trying everything the game has to offer. But efficiency is still the most important thing!”

  “Huh… Ok.” I’m getting a headache just imagining his train of thought. “So, when I reach level 3 I’ll tell you and we go and try some multipyer invasions. Also, do you have any strong status effects like stun, charm or the like? To help me with the unit capturing.”

  “Of course I do, who do you take me for?” He says. “So, once you reach level 3 we will start pying the game together! I will teach you as your senior! And then we can go to some dungeons that I have already selected for one such occasion like the…”

  “And NO humans!”

  “Ugh…." He puts his right hand on his chest, feigning that he is hurting due to a heart attack.

  *Tsk!* How can he be so childish and immature? I’m astounded at how immature some college students can be. Me? Of course I’m not. I’m a perfectly mature and professional adult.

  “...And did you know how the attack and defense works in the game? After the damage of each skill is calcuted, the game looks at the STR/CON or SPI/WIL of the attacker and defender and calcutes the extra damage or damage reduction. They make it work in a very realistic way, in my opinion.

  For example, in an armwrestling tournament, all of the participants have simir strength. And the difference between winning and losing is done by a very small difference in strength. Even with only 1 point extra, you win and the other loses. On the other hand, even if I participate and try to win in the tournament, it doesn’t matter if the armwrestling pro has 10 or 20 times my strength, I will be crushed anyway.

  In a simir idea, the game increases the damage by 5% if the STR or SPI is higher by 1 point. The extra damage increases to about 22% in a 5 points difference, 40% at 10 points, 60% at 18 points, 80% at 32 points difference. It more or less stops growing around the 80 points difference, and never reaches but gets infinitely closer to the 100% extra damage (double damage). As you can see, the higher the difference, the lower the effect it has on the extra damage dealt.

  In case the CON or WIL are higher, then the damage is reduced instead of multiplied. The value starts at 3.75% damage reduction for the first point. And 17%, 30%, 45%, 60% and never reaching 75% at the same difference in points as the ones I said for the extra damage…”

  - Some after-css ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard.