Redefining the META at VRMMO Academy 4

The rest of us, on the other hand, were uttering some iteration of “Urp... I’m gonna hurl.”

Now that we’d made it inside, it was time to get grinding.

“Okay, everyone. Let’s go level up!”

Urged on by our one healthy member, we looked around the dungeon. Whereas the first Sky Fissure had generated a looping dungeon, this one was more like a big, open room. The walls were made of bare stone, but the ground was green like grass.

It seemed to go on endlessly in all directions. The place really was randomized every time.

“Ooh, this one’s so big and pretty. How many Tokyo Domes do you think could fit in here?” I said, then waited for Akira to snap at me about having baseball on the brain.

However, she said nothing.

Huh? I looked at her next to me, but she turned away in irritation. What’s got her in a bad mood?

After a few moments of awkward silence, Yano came through for me. “Examples like that don’t really make sense for people who don’t love baseball. For high school girls, you want something more like Didneyland.”

Maeda tilted her head. “I think it’s about eleven times as large? One Didneyland is eleven Tokyo Domes.”

“Then what’s one Tokyo Dome? Hmm...”

“Point-oh-nine Didneylands.”

Truly, Maeda was a scholar. There was more to her than yanking the nitro lever.

Well, I mean, being a brainiac was her main shtick to begin with. Even honor roll students like her could flip personalities behind the wheel.

“Oh no! I slipped!”

Suddenly, I was pushed from behind—or more like tackled. It was Akabane’s doing, and she was awfully shameless about it. Clearly intentional!

Taken by surprise, I fell over, taking Akira down with me.

“Wha?!”

“Eep!”

As we fell on top of each other, I felt something soft on my cheek.

It was Akira’s lips. My second lucky strike, I guess?

“What the heck, Ren?! Geez, we can’t do this in front of people!”

“My bad! It’s just, Akabane—”

“Goodness, I am so sorry. I simply slipped, I swear. Good for you, though. You must’ve enjoyed that much more than when I did it, right? Right? Say I’m right!” She was seriously desperate.

Oh, I get it. She’s trying to offset what happened earlier. Guess she really wants to calm Akira down. Might as well go along with it, then.

“Well, yeah, I guess?” I said, standing up. I wasn’t exactly lying.

I then held a hand out to Akira, who was still on the ground. She took it with a smile.

“Fair enough. But if you did that with anyone else, you’d be so sued. That wasn’t the first time!”

“Wow, harsh?! Anyway... we should really start grinding already.”

I don’t remember doing anything wrong!

After all that silliness, though, the high-speed airship abuse was a thing of the past.

I took another look at the wide area before us. There were loads of monsters wandering around.

Lots of buffalo, wolves, and other beast-type monsters, huh?

As far as I could see, there were no rare monsters around.

“Look at all those enemies. This’ll be a worthwhile hunt!” Akira said, snapping a few screenshots.

“See any crown marks?”

Her camera’s zoom allowed her to see much farther than the naked eye.

“Nope, nada.”

“Interesting.”

Because they were all normal mobs, the experience yield would be based on the difference in our levels and theirs. Enemies that were too much weaker than us wouldn’t give us any EXP. That was the normal EXP calculation.

Rare monsters gave fixed amounts of experience points, so it didn’t matter what their level was.

Looks like all the monsters here are somewhere around level 50. Pretty much perfect for us, since we’re in our 40s. There’s just one problem, though.

“This works for us, but they’re too weak for Selphie.”

Experience calculation was done based on the highest-level member of the party, so if Selphie was in our party, we’d all be stuck without any EXP.

Maybe we ought to have her wait and watch for a while?

“No need to worry. I have Level Adjuster.”

“Ooh, nice! You’re a lifesaver!”

Level Adjuster is a talent that does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows the user to forcefully limit the party’s levels for a period of time.

For example, if she set us to 45, any party members above it would be brought down to 45. Anyone below it would remain where they were.

EXP calculations would be based on 45, then, letting us gain EXP without issue.

The talent was tailor-made to make level-grinding smoother. We never had the extra resources to get it, so it was a huge help that Akabane had it. As long as someone did, it would work on everyone.

“Shall I limit it to Takashiro’s level forty-five, then?”

“Sounds good. Then I can still use my dual-wielding! Thanks, Nozomi!” Akira happily swung her swords around.

“Haha. You’re really enjoying that new skill, huh, Akki?”

“Sure am! I haven’t used it nearly enough!”

“It’s a pretty good skill. All the moves are so satisfying to watch.”

“You meta-slave...”

But Akira really loved to use it, so I wouldn’t stop her. As the Emperor of the Underpowered, popular skills like that just weren’t to my taste.

Defeating things like dual-wielding was the true pleasure inherent in meta-redefinition. In other words, it was an enemy that had to be destroyed! No mercy!

“Ahaha. No one hates dual-wielding more than Ren.”

“Yeah, it’s my mortal enemy. It’s like the rivalry between the Tigers and the Giants.”

Akira let out a groan. “There you go with your baseball again. Normal humans just don’t ‘get’ that stuff, okay?”

“I sure don’t get it,” Yano said.

“Basically, it’s strong and popular in every game. There’s no ‘drama’ to it so he doesn’t like it.”

“Correct!”

“Haha, I see. You’ve got some weird proclivities, dude.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault. The moment I hold two weapons, I can’t enjoy a game anymore.”

“That's very like you, Takashiro. Very.”

“Heheh. Well, I’m not holding back. Besides, that’s what you get for making me pick Sword Dancer.”

“Yeah, yeah. You don’t let anything hold you back.”

“Darn right I don’t! Neither do you, though.”

“Yep. Anyway, I’ll make it so that your dual-wielding isn’t even necessary.”

“Ooh, what’s this? Gonna show us something cool?”

“You got it.”

“Very well. I’ll ready the Level Adjuster.”

“Cool. Now, watch me work so fast that it’ll blow your pesky dual-wielding outta the water!”

As long as we were in this competitive mission, level-grinding needed to be an efficient affair. Efficiency, indeed, was justice!

To go faster, to go more efficiently, to get the best EXP-per-hour rate possible!

And so we began our grinding.

“A’ight, here goes!”

First, Yano activated Sprint and ran around the nearest monsters. These aggressive enemies, the kind to attack as soon as they noticed a player, began to follow.

Now, almost a dozen monsters were following behind her as she ran: five Chief Wolves at level 53, and six Blue Buffalo at level 55. Yano dragged them around and back to our party.

It was a quick and easy train of monsters. Normally, this might seem threatening, but we saw them now as nothing but experience waiting to be gained.

We were going to deal with ’em all at once. We had this.

“Maeda!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Joint Magic!” we cried in unison.

“Stupefying Circle!”

“Diabolic Howl!”

How long had it been since we last joined our magic?

I created a circle large enough to engulf the entire train of monsters.

A dragon emerged from within and chomped on them with its gaping maw, removing 70% of their health at once.

It had been a while since we last used it, but this combo was so useful when it came to dealing with trash mobs.

Then, it was time for the cleanup act!

“But wait, I say! Grand Freeze!” Selphie, with her pink mask and the same tone of voice as you-know-who, unleashed her offensive magic.

The ground froze in a cone from where she stood, then pushed up sharp pillars of ice. Being hit by the pillars of ice would deal damage and afflict you with the Frozen status effect.

It was very useful offensive magic. This girl was a tough one, seeing as she’d had it to start.

Shame it’s been sullied by his influence on her.

“Grand Wave!”

“Ultimate move: Cross Crescent!”

Akabane’s area-of-effect offensive art and Akira’s area-of-effect offensive ultimate move fired off at the same time!

With that, Yano’s eleven pets were annihilated.

Our EXP bars slowly rose.

“Bawk! I leveled up again, bawk!”

The rest of us hadn’t, but thanks to Princess’ Skull Ring, Kokoru’s yield was being multiplied by three even if he didn't do a thing.

He couldn’t, anyway, because Cowardice meant he couldn’t deal a single point of damage to the opponent.

Still, we didn’t want Akabane to see all our cards. We would be enemies during the battle royale, after all.

So for now, we were just letting Kokoru tag along and level up passively.

“Nice. Keep on keeping on, Kokoru!”

“Feels kinda bad, bawk. I ain’t even doing anything. It’s like unearned income.”

“Don’t worry about it, bro. You’re earning it through all the work you do in the shop.”

Kokoru wasn’t just shopkeeping; he was even prepping products for us. The rest of us didn’t have to lift a finger; while we slept, Kokoru was turning a profit in our guild shop.

It was huge to get funds even while we were focusing on grinding elsewhere. In that regard, Kokoru's contribution to us was vital.

“Here you go, Yuuna. Sword Samba!”

Akira’s Sword Samba ended Sprint’s cooldown, making it usable again.

“Nice. Be back in a jiff!” Yano ran off again to collect some more enemies.

Maeda and I assumed the recovery pose, letting our MP refill.

Once Yano returned, we repeated the process.

With this system, there was no need for dual-wielding to make an appearance! All we had to do was drag ’em over and knock ’em down with AoE attacks!

Sorry, Akira. This is just the most efficient way! When you’re in a hurry, efficiency is king!

We rinsed and repeated, extinguishing all life in the Sky Fissure. The creatures here weren’t as much of an EXP feast as the Golden Bunny, of course, but it wasn’t a bad hunt.

“Aww, I can’t flex my dual-wielding skills here? Ren, you bully!”

“C’mon, we just gotta be efficient. Oh, look. There’s one more over there. Feel free to smack him around!”

We had started at the entrance and moved toward the opposite end, exterminating as we went. The exit was a little farther ahead, but next to it, there was one last Blue Buffalo left. Once we killed that one, we were all done.

See, in Sky Fissures, enemies don’t respawn no matter how much time passes.

“Yay! Don’t mind if I do!”

Akira attacked, releasing a shockwave from Skyfall. Once the enemy took damage from it, it headed for her.

“Get over here!”

Akira gleefully showed off her dual-wielding style as she began close-range combat.

“Me too! Me too!”

Apparently having tired of baiting enemies, Yano started jabbing the monster with her bayonet. The rest of us just hung back and watched.

Once we exited, we would be right back on the roller coaster that was the Peachy Thunder. Might as well take a breather while we could.

“You’re done for! Ultimate move: Aerial Crescent!”

She knocked the buffalo up high and sprang after it, doing a somersault in midair. With a mighty swing, she brought her sword down on the monster.

Having finished off her opponent with that flashy move, Akira smiled in satisfaction.

“Mmm, yeah. Much better.”

On to the next one, then.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, however...

“Chirp! Ren, I feel funny!” Draco piped up.

Ooh, it’s time for him to learn a new skill! What’s next?! C’mon, show me!

A system message appeared before my eyes.

Draco’s growth level increased!

Please choose a skill for it to learn:

Oh, heck yeah!

“Awesome! It’s been so long since he last learned a skill.”

“Ooh! What’s it gonna be?” Akira came over to take a peek, so I expanded the message window.

Regenerator (Passive)

Effect: Pet dragon will heal nearby players’ HP at regular intervals.

Can be used on all members of master’s party.

Heal rate: 5 HP per second.

Baby Breath (In-Battle)

Effect: Baby dragon breathes fire, supporting its master.

Pet will target whatever the player targets.

Pet’s master will take all aggro generated by this skill.

Grow Up (In-Battle)

Effect: Consumes master’s AP to grow temporarily. After growing, pet dragon will be treated as an NPC that attacks enemies based on master’s orders.

Reverts to baby dragon upon being defeated by an enemy attack.

AP Cost: 200

Effect Duration: 900 seconds

Dragon Recorder (Passive)

Effect: Observes all of master’s actions and records them in system log.

Saved logs can be viewed from the system window.

Logs can also be exported outside of the game.

“Ooooh!” I practically squealed in delight.

There was clearly only one real choice. Finally, Draco was really going to shine!

“Wow, this looks fun!”

“Niiice. I bet he’d be nice and strong if he got bigger!”

“How exciting!”

“He’d be a full-fledged pet dragon.”

“Draco can finally fight now, eh, bawk?”

“But wait, I say! It’s so adorable, yet so strong. I adore it!”

Our whole party rejoiced.

Time to make my decision, then.

“Cool. I’m going with Dragon Recorder.”

With a tap, I made my choice.

“Huh?!”

Everyone was shocked.

“Hey, c’mon! I need this! It’ll make testing things so much easier! Real-deal, professional experimentation means more trials and actually recording data! We could even get damage calcs going.”

Logs that mention damage dealt and taken could be found in the “past logs” menu, but once you logged out, they were gone forever.

This skill would let me keep them.

There were talents that could preserve logs like this, and I had actually been planning to buy one with the MEP I got from our last test.

It was beyond fantastic that I could do the same thing with my pet dragon!

Real-deal experimentation required large amounts of data and a whooole lot of staring at spreadsheets.

I still hadn’t done any actual analysis on data from this game.

As a lover of testing, I wanted to right away! Thus, I’d chosen Dragon Recorder! How could I not?

“Mwahaha... Now I can analyze thousands, no, tens of thousands of logs!”

“Oh, no, no, no! Those are the eyes of a child who’s just gotten his favorite toy!”

I didn’t listen to a word Akira said. Instead, I cuddled Draco and doted on him.

“Good boy! Thanks, Draco. From now on, I’ll be looking at those logs you get for me every day. You’re such a good help, buddy.”

“Chirp! I like helping Ren!”

“Urgh... Well, I guess your addiction wouldn’t allow you to resist a log-harvesting tool, huh?”

“Yeah! See, Akira, you get me!”

“You always say that, but I’ve pretty much just given up on it. Enough about that, though. Let’s get going!”

“Yeah! Data is a man’s best friend. I’m even more hyped knowing I’ll have logs of all this later on!”

We left the Sky Fissure and headed for the next one.

The Redefined Peachy Thunder and Maeda’s driving technique made it easy to secure the next entrance.

Until the game kicked us off at ten o’clock, we continued level-grinding with a few breaks in between.

We repeated this process over and over for days, and at last, the day of the explanation meeting for the final battle royale finally arrived.

Kokoru’s level had surpassed 60, increasing the amount of required experience points for each one. As a result, it was taking us longer and longer to up his level. At this rate, we would be facing the final battle royale somewhere in the low 70s.

Could he win at that level? Eh... It was kind of a grey area. I imagined it’d be difficult. There were some NPCs out there, like Selphie, who’d started at over level 60, so I wanted to squeeze in at least a few more.

Golden Bunnies would make it a lot easier if they’d just spawn, but including the first one, we’d only found two so far. If we tried hunting Golden Bunnies specifically, Kokoru might even make it over level 100.

But tonight, having logged out and gotten ready for bed, I looked at the Dragon Recorder logs in a spreadsheet on my computer.

Log analysis was so fun. It really soothed the soul. I was just planning to take a quick glance and go to bed when something suddenly caught my eye.

“Oh, whoa. What’s this?”

Now this is interesting.

◆◇◆

While waiting for class to start the next morning, I turned to Maeda to ask her something.

“Yo, Maeda. Remember how the first time we went in a Sky Fissure, you were checking the nitro cooldown?”

“Yes. Ooh, did you think of an exploit to make it go even faster?! What is it?!” She was overflowing with anticipation.

“No, not quite.”

“What? Aww, that’s a shame.”

Clearly disappointed, she returned to her usual calm and collected demeanor. There was really a stark contrast between her being “on” and “off.”

“Girl, the thing’s plenty fast already.”

“I don’t think so. It can be even better.”

“Okay, whatever. Anyway, back to what I wanted to ask. You were pulling that lever over and over while you were counting the time, yeah?”

“Yes. I checked once per second.”

“Do you remember what time it was when we entered the Sky Fissure?”

“Um, let’s see. I think it was 4:02 PM?”

“And eight seconds?!”

“Yes, thereabouts. How’d you know?”

“Ohoho! I see, I see! I might just have something here!”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look at this!”

I opened the past logs that Draco had procured for me and displayed one for Maeda.

It was yesterday’s log. My window detailed our words of excitement as we entered the Sky Fissure and saw our second-ever Golden Bunny.

The important thing here was the log that showed us entering the Sky Fissure. This information wasn’t all elaborated on in normal play, but the system had internally collected timestamps for when we’d entered the area. They were all in a 24-hour format.

The time of entry? 20:05:04. The moment Maeda was talking about before would’ve been 16:02:08.

“Oh, I see! The hour divided by the minute equals the seconds!”

“Yeah. If this holds true, then we’ve hit something big.”

When I checked the other past logs, our entries into other Sky Fissures never matched this formula.

“So we’re going to try to make Golden Bunnies spawn?”

“That’s right! This should lead to a huge leap in grinding efficiency!”

“But doesn't it sound rather simple? Is this information just hidden from everyone?”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s not always like this. Maybe it’s only this simple because of a bug, or maybe the method changes at set periods. Well, either way, we can’t just not use it, right?”

“You’re right. Well then, right after school—"

“Heck yeah! It's testing time!”

With only two recorded instances, it was possible that this had just been a coincidence. All that meant was that we needed more testing and more data!

Once the school day was over, we rounded up the rest of our guild and got right to it.

“Maeda, we go at 3:05 and three seconds! Ten seconds left!”

“Got it!”

Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!

Maeda pulled three nitro levers, piloting the Peachy Thunder toward a Sky Fissure much faster than the other airships.

We had won the race. The fissure was ours! However...

“Two seconds too fast!”

“How about some of this?”

Maeda spun the wheel hard. The ship rocked and lurched, diving through the air to evade the Sky Fissure. We swung around in an arc, pointing the bow of the ship perfectly toward the black hole.

Clunk!

Then, she activated the nitro once again with perfect timing. The ship shot forward, piercing into the Sky Fissure.

I checked the time. It was exactly 15:05:03 by the game’s clock.

She had intentionally swung out our arc to manage the time spent getting into it. Now that was skill!

“Nice. Did we make it?”

The dungeon we entered was like an overgrown forest full of light-green trees.

In the midst of it all was a monster with a shiny, golden body.

“Oooh! Look, there’s our Golden Bunny!”

This time, there wasn’t just one. A single glance revealed three—no, four of them. This alone could yield an entire day’s worth of experience points!

“Hooray! We’ve done it!”

“Yeah! Good job managing the time!”

We exchanged a high five over our shared success.

Akira was equally excited. “That’s awesome! I bet we can get Kokoru to the top level of all the NPCs now.”

“Mwahaha. Now you see that Dragon Recorder was the correct choice. Without the proper testing environment, it’s easy to overlook phenomena as simple and beneficial as this!”

We wouldn’t have figured this out without those logs.

Ahhh, how refreshing.

For a mad scientist like me, creating new strategies from the results of my experimentation was supreme bliss!

This would accelerate our grinding even further.

With Kokoru’s skill that summoned helpers based on his own level, level was power! His normal stats were the exact same as they had been at level 1—minus his HP and VIT—but this at least meant we had a chance!

Redefine the meta! Awaken your true power! Topple the giants! Kill them all!

Visions came to mind of Kokoru wrecking the other NPCs in battle.

Finally, I would tell the world with a smirk, “Yes! I raised that boy!”

“All right, girls, let’s kill these guys and move on to the next one! Time for Kokoru to grow, grow, grow!”

“Woohoo! Time to grind! Wait for me, you tasty little morsels!” Yano was in a good mood. She loved leveling up.

“Here I go, bawk!”

“Go get ’em!”

For Golden Bunnies, Kokoru was the perfect bait. Normally, they would flee when players approached. However, when faced with someone who had Cowardice—like Kokoru—and could never deal damage against them, they'd start kicking away.

Exerting power upon the weak and frail. Truly, if they were human, they’d be the bad guys.

“Bweeee! Bwee! Bwee!”

Kokoru waddled closer. Reacting to him all at once, they stormed him and started kicking the poor guy.

“Oww, bawk. Now, everyone! Baaawk!”

“Nice job!”

“Just another one of his ‘special’ abilities, I imagine,” Akabane muttered, exasperated.

Either way, it was the start of a Golden Bunny Festival!