The Life of the Ascetic?

We all know of the cliche "What you do not know will not hurt you." And indeed it held true for me during my first adventures in the world of RO. Since this game's character building is based on allocation of points (that you obtain from gaining levels) into your stats, namely strength, agility, dexterity, intelligence, vitality and luck - it was easy to mess up and having a weak character later on. The same point allocation system is also applied to the skills of your job class. Nevertheless I didn't pay any attention to any of that, not yet at least.

As my novice was nearing the minimum level requirement for the Acolyte job change quest, my stats were mostly balanced. I think I put a point when I could to each and every stat, since I had no idea what each of their strengths really was. Then it was time to take the test.

A map of Rune-Midgard, with the capital city Prontera at its center

I entered the so-called church located on the north-eastern corner of the game's capital city Prontera and talked to the quest NPC. The quest was pretty simple. First it involved talking to three people located around the world map but weren't that far that you'd risk encountering strong and aggressive monsters, unless you lose your way XD. After that you'd just have to return to the quest NPC to finish the quest. And so my life as an Acolyte began.

The Capital City Prontera

I immediately trained to gain skill points to try out the skills. Yeah Heal was pretty useful, I thought. It was actually crucial to my survival as I was more like a fighter rather than a healer. I even trained at places like Mt. Mjolnir and the fields near the magical city Geffen - places an Acolyte should not be training unless he's with someone else, bashing every Ambernite (monsters that look like giant snails XD) i see. Then I've heard of this great leveling place which was the Culvert of Prontera. The monsters inside were mainly bugs that loot items dropped by other monsters and gang up on you if attack their comrade. Lol. I think I got to lvl 35 inside that place.

The Magical City Geffen

At around that time there were already a lot of people playing the game. As I was looking around town I overheard (more like oversee XD) a conversation about an excellent leveling place for acolytes. They called it "GH". I later learned that it stands for Glast Heim. Thanks to the useful Warp Portal skill of Acolytes, players can get to the place easily. So I hitched a ride.

When I arrived there were a lot of people, but they were just sitting there or waiting for someone. We were outside a building that seemed like a church. I thought this map was like a town where it would be safe but the music and the dead plants, not to mention the dilapidated structures betrayed that thought. And I confirmed it to be a dangerous place when I saw this huge monster that was actually a black armored knight riding an evil-looking horse. Unsurprisingly, it was called Abysmal Knight.

the dreaded Abysmal Knight that was very popular during RO's early days

What surprised me was how ridiculously strong it was. The people around me started falling down like crazy when they were hit by its attacks. Of course, like the others, I entered the church to seek sanctuary. Or so it seems. The inside of the church was like a scene from Silent Hill - dark and desolate. Good thing I have the Teleport skill XD. There people in here as well but they were moving in the same direction. Must be the training grounds I've heard of. So I followed them. During the short but dangerous trip some characters, lowbies like me, didn't make it, as there were undead monsters that got to them.

When I arrived at the next area, which I presumed to be under the church, I was surprised that there were trees even if they were dead, lol. The place looks more darker than the previous area and soon I learned that it was some sort of graveyard. I was amazed at the number of people in the area. I noticed some people were just sitting around, probably because they were in a party and didn't need to fight. But it dawned on me as they wouldn't dare to attack the monsters here, as they were very strong. Although they moved slow, which worked to the advantage of archers and mages, and acolytes!? I've played games before wherein healing the undead would damage it but I never imagined it would be possible in an online game because I thought it would be imba XD

The Evil Druid was an excellent source of EXP for ranged attackers since it moves slowly.

So now I was more like an Acolyte than ever before, fighting the undead and evil instead of bugs and what-not XD For the next few times I logged in I was there spamming Heal on Evil Druids, Ghouls and Zombies, sitting amidst a group of people to regenerate SP (needed to be able to use skills of course) and running around or teleporting to avoid the occasional Hunter Fly that acolytes and lowbies in general have no chance of winning XD

But then I heard that they were launching a second server, since the occassion of lag spikes due to the stress the amount of people on the server caused. It even came to a point that no one could get in the game because it was full of people, brought on by the bonus exp event the administration held XD So I decided that I would move to this new server, since most of my classmates are moving there as well :D