Return Of Aegis

ZeRen spawned in an elf village, deep in some forest on the Mal continent. In the previous expansion, Mal continent was off limits to players due to crazy leveled monsters roaming around. Being spawned in this continent was a nightmare. ZeRen knew he was here because the map interface only showed the name of the continent and the boundary of the village. Beyond that, it was all fog.

When ZeRen had spawned here, he was excited. But his excitement was not shared by many others. Many upon seeing that they had spawned in Mal continent, chose to reset their characters and try again, hoping to spawn in more hospitable environments. Ignoring the others, ZeRen half ran and half gliding around looking for the tutorial NPC.

It took him awhile before finally spotting the NPC. The elf was the same shade of green as the forest floor, blending in perfectly with the ground. ZeRen had actually ran past this spot twice, had the NPC not moved her arm a bit, he would have missed her again.

Landing in front of the elf, ZeRen said: "Good morning Lady Sif, I'm here for the walkthrough."

"You've got a keen eye boy, although you could use a little bit more practice, had I not needed to scratch my nose, you'd have flown past again." replied Sif.

As ZeRen landed next to her, she began her explanation about the elves in Aegis. "As you know we elves are nimble creatures who are well tuned with nature. Elemental control is like second nature to us. Although most are earth type elementals, we also have some rare ones who are more attuned to wind. Our speciality are the archer and assassin classes. We do have warrior elves as well, but that's the path least taken."

"I've been watching you, since you arrived. I can tell you're different. Since you had such control in gliding and running, you can skip the tutorial. Here is your recommendation letter, go find Lady Slyph for your class change quest." said Sif.

The letter was made with some type of bark, it was tough but yet easily rolled up. Storing the letter, he turned to thank Lady Sif, but she had already left. It seemed that every time someone found her, she would change her location; he would only find out about this much later, when he read the forums of people complaining that they couldn't find the tutorial elf in Mal continent.

It was very odd, thought ZeRen, this wasn't your standard NPC programing. But he knew from what he learnt previously, some NPCs were more than what they appeared to be.

Dismissing the thought for now, his next task was to find Lady Slyph. Lady Sif had not given any directions as to where Lady Slyph may be. So he thought that they both might be the same type of NPC.

It took him much longer to find Lady Slyph, not because she was hard to find. But because she wasn't a she; she was a he. Lady Sif had played a prank on him, she had always referred to Slyph as a "Lady" because he was named after the elf Goddess. Their parents had wanted both children to be girls, their dad was so excited that, even before confirming the gender of their 2nd child, he had already named him.

Just so happen that ZeRen was going to take a rest after failing to locate "Lady" Slyph, he noticed an elf guard, gazing at him, near the village fountain. Thinking to ask for directions, he opened his mouth to ask, "Do you know where I can find Lady Slyph? I'm supposed to pass a letter to her."

Instead of a reply, ZeRen got a hearty laugh from the guard. Getting annoyed, ZeRen was about to turn and leave, when he noticed the name of the guard.

"Looks like you fell for my sister's pranks. My name is Slyph, the "Lady" you have been searching for." said the teary eyed guard, trying his best to hold his laughter in.

"Well my sister says your hunky build is more suited to be a warrior elf, but I beg to differ. Tell me youngster, what role do you want to play?" said Slyph.

"I want to be an archer, Mister Slyph." said ZeRen in full confidence. Although his stats looked to be more favorable towards a warrior, he insisted on wanting to be an archer. There was a lesser known build, but the build he was aiming for was well suited for hunting boss monsters as well as getting rid of specific targets.

"Since you're so sure you want to be an archer, take this training bow and 100 twig arrows. Then head to the South of the village, you will see a shooting range there. The further and more precisely you hit a target, the better your score. You need to achieve 100 points to pass." Slyph said as he handed over the bow and arrows to ZeRen.

Training Bow (Lv 1)

Rarity: Common (Quest Item)

Attack: 10 + (10 x Dex)

Range: 100 m - 500 m

Twig Arrow (x100)

Rarity: Common (Quest Item)

Attack: 20 + (10 x Dex)

The class of archer ZeRen was aiming for was the Wind Sniper class. It was a upper class type of archer that relied more on strength than dexterity. Wind Snipers could eliminate targets with one-shot from more than 5 km away. In the previous expansion, ZeLin had one such archer in his Holy Empire. His name was EagleEye, he had high burst damage, but was useless when it came to close combat, he could not evade as well as his other brethren. EagleEye gave ZeLin's side a lot of headache, but at the same time gave ZeRen a headache as he needed to allocate an entire platoon just to make sure this sniper didn't die.

In the entire ranking board for archers, there were only two other Sniper type archers besides EagleEye. It wasn't a popular class as gear was expensive and many would prefer the area skills normal archers would possess.

But that would not be an issue for ZeRen, if his brother managed to do his task well, he would have less to worry about on gears.

The shooting range was unmanned, but ZeRen could sense some magic in the air. Looking down range, the furthest targets seemed to be way outside the effective range of the training bow he was given.

Since he was given 100 arrows to try, he would do his best to achieve the highest score possible, and to do that, he would only aim for those at the 500 meter mark and beyond.

If Slyph could hear ZeRen's thoughts right now, he would either puke blood or laugh till his stomach hurt. In his past experience, not to say hitting 100 points, many would fail to even hit those within the 100 meter mark.