Ray Starling

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**Ray Starling**, real name **Mukudori Reiji** (椋鳥玲二), is the main character of the Infinite Dendrogram series. He is a Master of the Kingdom of Altar and the owner of the clan Death Period, which is ranked 2nd in the kingdom's clan rankings.

## Appearance

Ray's avatar has the appearance of a young man of Western ethnicity with blond hair. In reality, Reiji is a moderately handsome young man with black hair and eyes.

## Personality

Ray has a strong-willed personality that lets him stand tall, no matter what obstacles or despair he is faced with. Due to some unfortunate incidents with his sister in the past, he becomes scared and vigilant against people similar to her.

Because of the constant troubles his sister involved him in since he was a child, he developed a highly sensitive intuition. Because of this intuition, Ray can sometimes see through people's facades and plans.

Ray is criticized in *Infinite Dendrogram* by many for his "bad" fashion sense, to the point that even his enemy feels pity for him. Ray himself does not appear to be completely aware of his bad sense, even if he acknowledges it.

## History

The youngest child of the Mukudori family, Reiji was often dragged by his older sister into numerous ridiculous incidents, including a time of her part-time job when he was carried by her while being chased by naked superhuman Amazonesses in the South American rainforest, which contributed to his fear of his sister and a deep relationship with his talented older brother Shuichi.

When Ray was in elementary school, he went to watch his high school brother participate in the Unlimited Pankration Tournament, where he witnessed a young girl about to be run over by a truck. Reiji tried to save her, but needed to be saved by Shuichi instead, causing his brother to break his leg before his championship match. Despite this, Shuichi decided to participate in the match and won with the words he told Reiji about seizing the possibility, a defining moment in his life.

During Reiji's first year of high school, he was a member of his school's Electronic Game Research Society, where Hoshizora Koyomi was president and Souda Elmo was vice president. He won a Stream Fighter (a fighting game) tournament during this time. On the summer of his second year, the VRMMORPG *Infinite Dendrogram* was released. He was invited to play by his older brother, but he decided to restrict himself from all entertainment due to the fact he was focused solely on studying for the entrance exams for Tokyo University a year and half later during his last year of high school.

After passing the entrance exam for Tokyo University, Reiji moved into an apartment in one of his brother's three-city mansions closest to it.

During March of the year he began university, Reiji began playing *Infinite Dendrogram*.

## Abilities

As the owner of Death Period, Ray controls the clan's policies, activities and direction.

### Job

**Paladin** (聖騎士パラディン): A high-rank job from the Knight and Priest grouping that focuses on using the holy element and sword attacks. To achieve this job, one must defeat a Demi-Dragon class monster while dealing at least 50% of the total damage, donate 200,000 lir to the church and receive a recommendation from a member of the Knight Order of the Kingdom of Altar. This job's stat growth mainly focuses on HP, STR, and END. Ray took this job first on the recommendation from the *Diagnostic Job Catalogue* when noticing he achieved all 3 Paladin job conditions.

* **First Heal** (ファーストヒール): An active recovery magic skill that heals the target's HP by a small amount.
* **Paladin's Aegis** (聖騎士の加護): A Paladin passive skill that reduces all physical and magical damage. At level 1, this skill reduces all physical and magical damage by 10%.
* **Purifying Silverlight** (聖別の銀光せいべつのぎんこう): An active skill that can be learned by Paladins, it grants the holy element to the user's attacks and multiplies damage to the undead by 10 times. All damage to the undead dealt by this skill cannot be healed. To acquire it, a Paladin must defeat 100 undead of around the same total level as themselves.
* **Grand Cross** (グランドクロス): The ultimate skill of the Paladin. The user attacks the target with a pillar of holy light in the shape of a cross from the surface under their feet. **Grand Cross** has a 0.5% chance to be acquired when leveling up times ‘number of people helped in Paladin job quests’, with Paladin as the main or sub job. There is a time lag with this skill, requiring the user to be stationary for a few seconds to complete its activation.

**Prism Rider** (煌騎兵プリズム・ライダー): A rare low-rank job from the Rider grouping. In order to qualify for this job, the user must own a Prism Beast of any type and have the 'Horse Riding' or 'Riding' skill at Lv. 5. The stat growth increases evenly, with a bit more for MP and AGI, however, overall total stat growth is less than most low-rank jobs. Ray took this job second on the recommendation from the *Diagnostic Job Catalogue* as a discovered lost job, qualifying the job conditions with his **Horse Riding** skill and his ownership of a Prism Steed.

* **Prism Beast Enhancement** (煌玉獣強化): A passive skill that enhances the abilities of all Prism Beasts (Prism Steeds, Prism Bugs, and Prism Dragons). At Lv. 1, the enhancement is 10% and at Lv. 10, the enhancement is 60%. Level 100 **Prism Cavalier** raises the skill to Lv. 10.
* **Prism Authorization** (煌玉権限): Unlocks the restricted functions of certain Prism Beasts at higher skill levels. For the low-rank job **Prism Rider**, the skill is static at Lv. 1, and only by attaining the high-rank job **Prism Cavalier** can the skill level increase. Level 100 **Prism Cavalier** raises the skill to Lv. 3.

**Death Soldier** (死兵デス・ソルジャー): A low-rank job from the Soldier grouping with little stat growth and no job conditions. Ray took this job on the recommendation of Rosa so as to make better use of Nemesis's skills and his **Impact Counter** technique.

* **Last Command** (ラスト・コマンド): The only skill of **Death Soldier**. This passive general skill allows the user to continue moving even after their HP reaches 0 for a time based on the skill level. At Lv. 5, the user can continue moving for less than a minute. This skill only allows body movement from where the head is connected and the user can still feel pain until the skill duration is over.

**Scout** (斥候スカウト): A low-rank job of the Scout grouping with no job conditions, noted for providing several useful general skills. Ray acquired this job fourth so he could use Nemesis' fourth form, the **Black Mirror** more efficiently.

* **Reveal** (看破): An active general skill that allows the user to take a look at another person's status information: name, main job, main job level, total level, and status values.
* **Killing Intent Perception** (殺気感知): A passive general skill that lets the user sense killing intent.

**Sorcerer** (呪術師ソーサラー): A low-rank job focused on casting curses. It possesses various types of resistance skills. Ray acquired this job initially to test if he could use the Nameless Axe more efficiently with its resistance skills, but because he has learned how the Axe's skill work, Ray is only keeping the job due to the Nameless Axe's recommendation.

**Priest** (司祭プリースト): A low-rank job focused on healing. Ray took this job sixth due to his fight with ZZZ's embryo that restricted his item usage and as a result, learned the necessity of recovery magic such as Force Heal.

* **Force Heal** (フォースヒール): An active skill that heals the target's HP by a greater amount than **First Heal**. It can also heal wound type debuffs, such as Broken and Burn.

**Forlorn Hope** (決死隊フォーローン・ホープ): A rare low-rank job with the conditions for achieving it is to take grudge related jobs, such as **Death Soldier** and **Sorcerer**. The stat growth is moderate with barely any increase. Ray took this job because of its compatibility with the **Death Soldier** job.

* **Last Attack** (ラスト・アタック): The only skill of **Forlorn Hope**. With this passive general skill, when one's HP reaches 0, the user selects a target then the applicable damage against that target is doubled.

**Prism Cavalier** (煌玉騎プリズム・キャバリア): A high rank job from Prism Rider sub-grouping. The conditions for achieving the job are to have at least level 1 on Prism Authorization skill, the total level has reached 400 and the total skill level of Prism Authorization has exceeds 5,000 in the whole world. At job level 100, the prior Prism Authorization rises to Lv. 3 and the Prism Beast Enhancement rises to Lv. 10.

### Other Skills

**Impact Counter** (衝撃即応反撃インパクトカウンター): A technique for attacking the opponent at the same time they attack you. Ray learned this technique by practicing with the Kingdom's duel rankers. Rosa gave the technique its name.

## Trivia

* Ray is very averse to (1) wearing glasses, (2) girl's clothing, and (3) animal ear headbands under any circumstance.
* Back in fourth-year elementary school, Ray was called 'Noby' because he happened to be the only kid in class who wore glasses.
* Back in high school, Ray was called an 'all-nizer'.
* Ray's first discarded job is the **Dark Knight** (暗黒騎士ダークナイト).