A Beginner's Guide to Apis
The screen filled with elegant, flowing text as the video began to play. I leaned back in my chair, watching with mild interest.
Hello, everyone. I'm streamer Ryu Dan, the one running the Apis strategy channel on MyTube.
With the spring sale in full swing, a lot of new players are jumping into Apis these days. It's a famous game, after all, and many of you are probably getting into it because your friends are playing too.
But Apis is an incredibly deep, veteran-heavy game. A lot of newcomers log in with high hopes, only to log right back out again. Honestly, how many things do you even need to know just to play this game properly?
Once you learn the basics, there's no more fun game out there. It'd be such a shame if you quit before even getting a proper taste. That's why I'm writing this guide for all the beginners out there.
As you probably already know, Apis is a fighting game released to match the VR era. The way to enjoy it is simple. Move your character and drain your opponent's health bar completely. That's it.
There are plenty of other elements, but at its core, that's what Apis is all about. Everything you'll learn from now on is simply a method to reduce your opponent's health.
This guide won't teach you how to get good at the game. If I started talking about combos and frame data, you'd probably want to quit immediately. Besides, there are already tons of well-organized guides like that out there. You can look them up once you've gotten hooked.
So what am I going to teach you? Simple. How to actually have fun with Apis.
Alright. Let's start the game.
Once it boots up, you'll see that amazing prologue that every VR gamer acknowledges as top-tier. When that's over, it's time to choose your character.
You'll probably get brain freeze looking at the fifty-plus options, but don't worry. You're not the only one. There's a manual prepared just for newbies like you.
The characters I usually recommend to beginners are...
Once you've chosen your character, it's time for the tutorial.
Apis's tutorial consists of three stages.
1. Using assists to try out your character's skills.
2. Using those skills in a real fight against an AI opponent.
3. Experiencing death against an overwhelmingly powerful foe you cannot defeat.
Stages one and two are pretty standard for most games, but the third one might feel unfamiliar. Simply put, stage three is a defeat event. No matter how hard you struggle, an opponent you cannot beat will come to kill you.
You'll feel helplessness. You'll feel the terror of death. If you haven't adjusted your pain settings properly, you might even scream.
You're probably wondering why on earth they'd put something like this in the game, but there's a reason. In Apis, defeat equals death. And defeat comes for everyone equally. Newbies. Veterans. Pro gamers. You'll experience death countless times while playing.
The tutorial is giving you a vaccine. It's teaching you that death inside VR isn't something to be afraid of. It might be shocking at first, but you'll get used to it over time.
Can you avoid dying? There is a way. If you have the skill to defeat the tutorial's powerful enemy, that is.
In any case, the enemy's attacks aren't impossible to deal with. You can dodge and block them. And their health isn't infinite either. It is possible to drain it completely someday.
Veterans often say that if you dodge everything and land every hit, you won't die. Of course, that requires at least Challenger-level skill.
Let me be clear, that's the minimum. Even active pro players struggle to defeat these bosses.
New players, it's better for your mental health if you don't even try. Especially the one called Sam-jang-ro, the powerful enemy of the Heavenly Demon. In Apis's decades-long history, only three people have ever defeated him.
Han Seo-woo, the Korean pro gamer called the Living Heavenly Demon. Pice Scovia, the living legend who has never dropped from the number one ranking since Apis launched. And former UFC champion Mike Hanson. These three are the only ones who cleared this absurd monster.
Got it? If you picked the Heavenly Demon, I recommend you just die quietly and move on to the next tutorial.
Once the character tutorial is finished, tutorials for the various modes will follow. Starting with the core 1v1 mode, then explanations for 3v3 and 5v5...
The prologue video that had me completely absorbed finally ended, and a customization window appeared.
It looked like I could adjust my appearance, gender, and so on, but I had zero interest in any of that. What use was outward appearance in a fight?
I skipped everything without touching a single setting. A warning popped up saying my real-life appearance would be applied as-is. What was the problem with that?
I casually ignored the warning, and a window asking me to enter a name appeared.
I already had something in mind. The character I was going to play from now on was me from the Murim world, so naturally I should use the name I went by back then.
[Hwaryeong]
Fortunately, no one was already using that name. After that, the character selection window appeared.
Please select the character for the tutorial.
The number of characters in Apis was dizzying. Even at a glance, there were easily over fifty. After searching for quite a while, I finally found the Heavenly Demon's face. It was, of course, mine.
The eyes worn down by life. The pupils filled with hatred. The killing intent that couldn't be hidden and practically radiated off the character. The messy, roughly cut short hair. That was exactly what I looked like right after turning thirty.
It was that foolish time when I let my emotions control me. I don't know who made this game, but did they really have to put that version of me in here?
In modern terms, that period was close to a dark history for me. Weren't there plenty of better times? Just five years later, I would have been far more mature.
Complaining wouldn't change anything. When I selected the character, the scenery changed.
What unfolded before me was a landscape far too familiar. If the modern world was my home in this life, this place could be called my home in the Murim world.
The main headquarters of the Heavenly Demon Cult. The center of my nightmares. The place I had personally reduced to dust. Seeing it again wasn't exactly pleasant.
And then there was the person standing before my eyes. One of the elders of the Demonic Cult. The old man who had been obsessed with raising me into the flawless Heavenly Demon. The madman who, even on the day I killed him, had smiled and said, "Finally, you've become complete."
The Third Elder, Han Yeong-geol.
I never thought the day would come when I'd see this old bastard's face again.
Han Yeong-geol bowed to me with perfect courtesy.
Would you like to proceed with the Basic Combat Tutorial?
The words that came from Han Yeong-geol's mouth were in the language I had used in the Murim world. How fortunate. It seemed I wouldn't have to suffer from language barriers here either.
I have nothing more to learn from you, Yeong-geol.
It had already been sixty years since I surpassed you. You are no longer a nightmare or a rival to me. Just one of the many, many martial artists beneath me.
At my refusal, Han Yeong-geol didn't add anything else. Instead, he clapped his hands, summoning people into the training hall.
This was definitely... Ha. Damn it.
The ones who opened the training hall door and entered were two young trainees. Children who had just passed ten years old, their eyes still filled with innocence. The ones who had trained in martial arts alongside me. And the ones who occupied a corner of my nightmares.
I didn't know who made this, but they clearly didn't have the best personality. To recreate the exact scene of the first time I ever committed murder.
I couldn't remember those children's names. We had barely exchanged a few words. What remained in my memory was how, upon meeting me, they...
"Greetings!"
They had smiled brightly. They had been so happy that they could be of help to me. At least until they died by my hand.
I still remembered. The way they screamed as they died. The voices begging for their lives with meaningless apologies. And the resentment they spat out at the very end.
My head hurt. You want me to recreate that scene with my own hands? Don't be ridiculous.
If it were the pathetic, weak me from back then, maybe. But now it was different. I was the Heavenly Demon. The Three Supremes of the world had fallen beneath me, and every master, righteous or demonic, had met death at my hands.
Who could possibly force me to do anything? No one. No one could bend my will.
If this game tried to force my actions... Ha. Fine. I might as well flip the company that made it upside down.
The children looked up at me with innocent faces, asking, "Huh?" I pushed past them and stood before Han Yeong-geol. He simply stared at me with an indifferent expression.
This was supposed to be an AI? No matter how I looked at it, this was Han Yeong-geol himself.
Even though I deliberately used an aggressive tone, Han Yeong-geol's face didn't change at all. My lifelong wish had been to put a crack in this bastard's expression. That only happened right before he died. I wondered if it would be the same now. Would this AI react the same way?
Han Yeong-geol's eyebrows shot up. Hahaha! Yes. This was exactly the reaction I had been hoping for.
His eyes hardened. This man was competent, regardless of his personality. He must have realized my words weren't mere jest. A tiny flicker of emotion crossed his usually expressionless face. To me, it looked like pity.
Han Yeong-geol spoke as if scolding a child.
I had heard those words until I was sick of them. The old men of the Murim world always carried on about knowing one's place. The arrogance of thinking they were showing mercy to a newcomer from the countryside was an added bonus. I hated that kind of thing.
What did age matter? Strength didn't increase proportionally with age. The only thing a martial artist should respect was the strong. If you wanted to earn others' respect, you simply had to prove your own strength.
No matter how faint Han Yeong-geol's emotions were, he was still a martial artist. He couldn't just stand there after being spoken to like that by someone much younger, someone who appeared far beneath him. For a martial artist, pride was more important than life itself.
Regret? That wouldn't happen. My entire life was already filled with regret. What more could I possibly add?
When I turned my head, I saw the two children's faces full of confusion. In the end, they were nothing but scraps of data. I knew that. But I just couldn't think of them that way.
I put on a stern face and let out a tiny bit of killing intent. The children flinched in fear and hurriedly fled the training hall.
Yes. This was how it should have been. Back then too, it should have been like this.
There was clear irritation in Han Yeong-geol's voice. He hated mercy. He believed the Heavenly Demon should be cruel, lawless, and cold. I had realized as I grew older that this was all nonsense.
It didn't matter who you were. Whatever your personality, whatever your appearance, whatever martial arts you used. As long as you could stand in the heavens and reign over all demons, you were the Heavenly Demon. No additional conditions were necessary.
It looked like today, I would have to pass on my enlightenment to Han Yeong-geol.