Chapter 5 Skill Combinations
The task acquisition process was rather arduous, as there was an overwhelming number of players in the new server. In Glory's history, when the second server opened, the crowd was so dense that it flooded the starter village, leaving online players unable to move and offline players unable to log in. Since then, Glory has temporarily added multiple starter villages during new server launches to distribute the population, and the tragedy of the second server's opening hasn't been repeated.
The preparations for this tenth server were quite thorough, with each starter village evenly dividing the surging players. Although there were many people, it was far from overcrowded. However, near the NPC who assigned tasks, the scene was entirely different. Everyone needed to find this one NPC to receive tasks, and they all rushed forward at once, forming a chaotic cluster. In Glory, characters couldn't overlap or pass through each other, so players ended up surrounding each other in layers. Those inside couldn't get out, and those outside couldn't get in. Many players were jumping around, trying to leap over others' heads. But since these were newly created level-0 characters, their jumping ability was poor and the height wasn't enough. The sight inevitably reminded one of the poetic phrase about "hopping and jumping, so adorable."
Even the most skilled expert would be helpless in such a situation. Chen Guo, watching nearby, was thoroughly amused, her expression clearly saying, "I knew this would happen." She glanced at Ye Xiu's character and noted down his name first: Jun Moxiao.
Amidst the incessant cries and spamming of countless players, the situation gradually improved. How was it resolved? By clearing a path for an exit, allowing those who had finished receiving tasks to come out, and then the process could continue.
Ye Xiu guided Jun Moxiao through the painstaking process of accepting all the tasks and then began completing them one by one. Starter villages, after all, were mainly meant to help players adapt to the game's environment and controls, with tasks designed to be instructional. Naturally, Ye Xiu didn't need hand-holding. After experiencing issues like monster-stealing, queuing, and crowd congestion—all stemming from the sheer number of players—the first batch of completable tasks was finally done. During this, Chen Guo occasionally came over to observe and comment. In the end, these ridiculously simple tasks took a full two hours to complete, prompting Ye Xiu to sigh: "What's an expert? In the sea of people, skilled players are just clouds in the wind."
"Finally cleared them all, level 7 now." After turning in the last task and gaining another level, Ye Xiu turned to tell Chen Guo, only to find that Miss Chen had already slumped back in her chair and fallen asleep, her head still facing the direction of his screen!
And this is how she’s supposed to be evaluating his all-night endurance? Ye Xiu felt a touch of disdain. He took off his jacket and casually tossed it over Chen Guo, then turned back to continue his journey of pioneering the server.
He opened the interface to check. After completing this batch of tasks, Jun Moxiao had accumulated 340 skill points.
In Glory, learning and upgrading skills required skill points, with different skills needing varying amounts, ranging from 10 to 50. Currently, a max-level character at level 70 could obtain up to 4,000 skill points after completing regular quests. However, this wasn't the absolute limit—the true cap was 5,000 skill points. Obtaining the remaining thousand required a mix of luck and strength.
In the ten years of Glory's existence, no account had ever reached 5,000 skill points. Even the legendary account "One Autumn Leaf," hailed as the God of Fighting, had only reached 4,840 points—still 160 short. 160 might not sound like a lot, but if all allocated to powerful skills requiring 50 points each, it could mean learning three additional ultimate moves or upgrading one ultimate move by three levels. For a top-tier expert, this was a significant advantage.
Therefore, during newbie tasks, quests offering experience or equipment rewards could be ignored, but skill points were a must. In addition, there were attribute point rewards. Glory characters had four basic attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Stamina, and Spirit.
Strength influenced physical attack, defense, and weight-bearing capacity.
Intelligence affected magical attack, defense, and mana capacity.
Stamina naturally impacted hit points and a character's endurance.
Spirit enhanced the effects of certain status skills and resistance to abnormal conditions.
These four attributes grew naturally as the character leveled up, with varying growth rates for each class only appearing after the level-20 class transfer. As for attribute rewards from tasks, they were treated equally. Strength-giving tasks granted Strength, Intelligence-giving tasks granted Intelligence—Strength-based classes could choose to do only Strength quests, but tasks offering Intelligence rewards were still available to them.
In other words, without the growth adjustments from class transfer, a max-level character's four basic attributes would be completely identical after finishing all tasks, with no differences whatsoever. Thus, all tasks must be completed, and later, equipment would be used to enhance the desired attributes.
Since there wasn't much to focus on with attributes at this stage, Ye Xiu checked the interface and immediately sent Jun Moxiao to learn skills using the skill points.
In Glory, class transfer occurs at level 20. Before that, characters have no class—or rather, are all classes—and can learn skills from any class system as long as they have enough skill points. This was designed to let players experience all aspects of the game and find a class they’re interested in by level 20. Upon class transfer, skill points are reset, and skills are relearned. After transfer, however, only skills from the chosen class can be learned—no more being a jack-of-all-trades.
Ye Xiu didn't remember how to do newbie tasks or clear beginner dungeons, but he certainly didn't forget the starter skills. Glory's skill balance was exceptionally well-tuned, with even the lowest-level skills having their own utility. Each player could choose a unique skill combination based on their preferences. After all, skill points were limited—even with the maximum of 4,000 points at full level, it was impossible to max out all skills, let alone with 5,000 points. Choices had to be made.
When it came to skill selection, a top expert like Ye Xiu certainly had his own methodology. His One Autumn Leaf account was a Battle Mage, but he himself was hailed as a textbook-level player—could he possibly be proficient in only one class? Absolutely not. Mastery of all classes was the only way to earn that title.
Without much hesitation, Ye Xiu first went to the general skills trainer and learned two general skills available at level 5: Sprint and Roll.
General skills were skills that all classes could learn. The two skills Ye Xiu chose were inexpensive, each costing 10 skill points, and they added two new movement options to the character.
Sprint is a movement skill that increases running speed. It has no cooldown but requires endurance to use. Once endurance is depleted, the character automatically returns to normal running speed. Endurance can be recovered by walking or standing still, with walking being slower and standing still faster.
As for rolling, as the name suggests, it allows the character to perform rolling movements—forward, backward, left, right, diagonally, or even while running or sprinting. It also has no cooldown but consumes endurance to execute.
Regarding the class skills Ye Xiu planned to learn next, he already had a clear idea of which ones were most practical for him at this stage.
First was Sky Strike, a Battle Mage skill. This launching attack is common across all classes, with the same basic function: after hitting the target, it sends them into the air. The higher the skill level, the greater the height and damage. It’s one of the most fundamental and frequently used skills. Since Ye Xiu’s main class is Battle Mage, he naturally chose Sky Strike for his launching skill.
Next was Dragon Tooth, another Battle Mage skill—a thrust attack that briefly stuns the enemy. Again, due to his main class, Ye Xiu learned it without hesitation.
After that, he acquired the Sharpshooter’s Floating Bullet, the Mechanic’s Mechanical Pursuit, the Spell Blade’s Ground Splitting Wave Blade, the Judo practitioner’s Back Throw, the Ninja’s Shuriken, the Swordsman’s Block, the Elementalist’s Light Ring, and the Oracle’s Healing.
These low-tier skills require minimal skill points, all under 20. Since Lord Grim is only level 7, there’s a limit to how much the skill levels can be raised, leaving some of the 340 skill points unused. Ye Xiu decided not to learn more skills, as he believed these were already sufficient to handle any current situation.
However, if an ordinary player were to see this skill combination from a top-tier expert, they would probably laugh.