THE MOMENT
The goblin disintegrated into dust and the brilliant golden flames dissipated all at once. Black ash turned to sparkles as it fell leaving a small pile of coins. Denise had caught the lesson, but she was still unsure about a few things. Her party leader, Eury, was showing her how to adventure in the wild and currently explaining some of the finer points of magic.
“That's how you take advantage of a Shined element,” Eury nodded, then turned and pointed at another goblin. The two of them were surrounded in a shaded meadow, but not a single goblin was moving. Eury had the whole ambush locked in time to teach Denise a few things while they had a chance. They’d been searching for trouble and encountered it easily enough. “Try it out on that one,” she said.
"Right," Denise put her question on hold to follow instructions. She initially felt unsure when the teenager showed up. Her new boss introduced her to the AlterNet and instead of exploring it on her own, Denise requested a guide through the company. She was surprised that someone as young as Eury was working for Chroma Corp., but, she'd proven friendly and very knowledgeable. She focused on the target goblin and readied her fire spell. "Ready," she said.
[Shining Aura] a deep voice filled the air and the text appeared in Denise's view as Eury activated the skill. A gold sun icon appeared in her Auras and it blinked with a 'x1' counter to show how many charges it had. She raised her palm toward the goblin.
[Shined Fireball] she willed her own Ability to activate and the voice confirmed she succeeded along with a line of text. But, the golden fireball that shot out of her hand was proof to Eury. The flame struck the unmoving goblin and it ignited instantly. A flash as quick as the previous one left behind another pile of gold coins. A few lines of text scrolled by, to sum up the interaction. Eury had asked her to turn on the battle log so she could see how everything worked together. Goblins were weak to fire and a Shined element was twice as strong; she could see that it did in fact do four times the damage.
"Whoa, thanks!" Denise was glad for the tip, but they had also just started. She was appreciative in advance for everything else she was sure Eury could teach her.
"The other side of that is the 'Betrayed' element," Eury said. “If they’re resistant to an element, the Betrayed version strikes their weakness. We need a different mob for that, goblins don't have an elemental resistance we can exploit." She opened a black portal and encouraged Denise through it.
“Wait, what about the gold?” she asked.
“Gold? You got some, didn't you? We're in a party, I got my share already.”
“But..,” Denise pointed at the two small hills. “... it dropped for me. Why do monsters drop gold when we beat them? Why just me? How did you get yours already?”
“Huh?” Eury looked in the direction Denise pointed, but her gaze didn't land on anything. “Oh! You're really new,” she giggled and shook her head. She made a gesture at the portal and it disappeared.
“Maybe we should spend some more time in the Settings before we move on. There's an “Auto-loot” toggle you should switch on, and probably some other things you're missing,” she said. “It's in the same group where you turned on the battle log.” she added. Denise nodded and navigated through the menus. She’d been so focused on finding the first one Eury asked that she didn’t pay attention to the others. Once she saw there were so many she decided to go back and explore them later.
“Auto-loot…,” she found it and toggled the button. She got an instant notification about her share of gold and she looked up. The piles were gone. “Oh that's handy!” she was glad she didn't have to pick up each coin.
“Yep. Now monsters won't drop gold or loot anymore, you'll get your share automatically,” she said. “Let's check some other ones while you're in that menu.”