After exiting Old Timer's Bar, Ye Qi walked into the mists of the night with two hands in his pocket. Ye Qi had no idea pulling the gun out on Old Walter would be so darn effective. Of course, Ye Qin would not dare to kill Old Walter because the old man was after all his current Quest Giver!
This was a world that was almost similar to Ye Qi's original world—There were televisions, cars but there was no trace of the old countries. Even though the world retained the various cultures and traditions, the world itself was bigger. Of course, the most interesting thing about this world was Ye Qi was an amateur Demon Hunter that carried with him something akin to a game system.
With a mental order, a faded blue character screen that was around twenty inches materialized and floated before Ye Qi. The screen detailed Ye Qi's current status clearly:
Name: Ye Qi
Title: Amateur Demon Hunter
Level: 4
Profession: None
Stat:
Strength: 15 (+1)
Agility: 14
Physique: 14
Perception: 16 (+2)
Charm: 14
Unassigned Stat Point: 1
Specialization: Bestial Wrath
Unassigned Specialization Point: 1
Skill:
Appraisal: 5, Deception: 5, Focus: 8, Trap Crafting: 4, Medic: 2, Stealth: 18, Hearing: 15, Lore: 2, Lock Picking: 10, Theft: 2, Exploration: 10, Firearms: 20, Ice Weapon Style: 18
Unassigned Skill Mastery Point: 7
After increasing Firearms to 25 and Ice Weapon Style to 20, Ye Qi closed the character screen. Ye Qi did not rush to assign the one Stat Point and Specialization point because Ye Qi still had not given enough thought to his next choice—His profession choice when he reached level 5. Ye Qi did not want to rush into it and use up all his points now lest he came to regret them later. Another important details was—Ye Qi believed his current ability was enough to take down all of the quests Old Walter throws at him. After all, each point would bring drastic change to Ye Qi, he could not afford not to be careful.
This gaming system that attached itself to Ye Qi did not follow the normal calculation when calculating Ye Qi's Stat Point. For example, currently Ye Qi had 14 in strength, if he added one point to it, normally speaking, Ye Qi would gain a one over fourteenth point increase in strength. However, in reality, if he assigned this one point to it, the real effect would be a one-and-a-half increase over the baseline! In other words, if Ye Qi used this unassigned stat point, then one of his current five major Stats of strength, agility, physique, perception and charm would have an over half increase instantly! [1]
Regarding Specialization, there were three available options: First was Artistic Eye that could increase his Lore and Appraisal skill; Second was Alert Heart that would increase his Stealth and Hearing skill; Third was Two-Handed Mastery that would increase his damage output when using double-handed weapons. Every single of the specialization was useful because they either increase his skills or provide additional effect. It was because they were individually so beneficial that Ye Qi had a hard time settling on one.
"I'll just wait until the Profession option is open when I'm level 5!" Ye Qi told himself.
Four years ago, Ye Qi still had a family and a normal dream. However, before he could step into the society to pursue his dream, a car accident ended his life. However, after death, Ye Qi got transported into another world and reincarnated as a young boy.
Before Ye Qi would come out from his shock, a vampire with a pair of batwings riddled with etchings of runes and a glaring wound under the corner of his eyes suddenly materialized before Ye Qi. As he extended his fangs at Ye Qi, the Demon Hunter John arrived to interrupt the vampire. John traded blows with the vampire and the vampire escaped after landing some wounds on John.
In his conversation with John, Ye Qi cleverly played the role of a young boy who had lost his memory from an accident. As how the plot went in this kind of story, John took Ye Qi "who had no one else in the world" under his wings and trained him to be able to look after himself in this "dangerous" world. In way, John was for Ye Qi his life saviour and teacher. It was why when Old Walter used John's name to shame him, Ye Qi almost lost his mind and pulled the trigger.
Initially, Ye Qi thought he could train under John to become at most a third-rate Demon Hunter and then lived the rest of his newfound live in normalcy—After all, Ye Qi, as a normal human from Earth had no special talent, even the body of this young boy Ye Qi had taken over had nothing special to his constitution either. Frankly speaking, he was in one word, weak. This was especially obvious when he showed no signs of impressive improvements after a series of trainings. However, when John handed Ye Qi a simple tailing quest as training, his life changed.
"Activating system…"
"System character optimizing…"
"Character acquirement of random specialization… Selected Bestial Wrath; Awarded 100 Skill Mastery Points…"
Bestial Wrath: Your experience growing up among animals meant that you have excellent prey-and-predator instinct. Effect: Perception +2.
After a series of system audio, Ye Qi changed. His body was a lot stronger, his speed faster, his sight and hearing got better; Other than that, he received something akin to a gaming system. After familiarizing himself with the system, just as Ye Qi thought he was powerful enough to rule over the world, he was slammed back down to the harsh reality. Even after the system's optimization, his strength and speed was already several times his original status but he was still quite a distance away from reaching John's level.
However, this was not the setting that demotivated Ye Qi the most. That happened when Ye Qi realized he would gain no experience from "killing mobs". Experience could only be gained from completing quests and Ye Qi would only get one Unassigned Stat Point every fourth level increase. According to his calculation, since he would only get one Unassigned Stat Point every fourth level increase, he would need to reach at least level 20 before he could gain 5 Stat Points to fully optimize all of his major stats. According to John, his ability could only be considered middle in the Demon Hunter Guild, there was a gauntlet of characters more powerful than him. Just thinking about the mess of people more powerful than John, Ye Qi truly understood how weak he was—Even if he was gifted this system, he still needed to put in plenty of hard work.
Ye Qi who had given a splash of cold water by the cruel reality surrendered to his fate and started to work hard to improve himself.
In the four years, the young boy had grown into a respectable youth. Compared to his initial vulnerability when he just arrived at this world, Ye Qi had gotten much more mature. Other than training, Ye Qi spent the four years committing himself to minor quests. It was these quests that helped Ye Qi grow. However, two months ago, when John left, Ye Qi had only raised his level to 3, he was desperate for more experience. Regardless, he did not complain about it to John because he understood it was these minor quests that would set the foundation for his future.
Furthermore, after John left and assigned Ye Qi to Old Walter, Ye Qi had a drastic increase in his difficulty of his quests. When facing these more difficult quests, Ye Qi would truly appreciate the minor quests that John had given him. Ye Qi thanked John even more. Without the training from those minor quests, even with the help from the system, Ye Qi did not think he would be able to complete these newer quests with his life still intact.
The quests given by the systems could be delineated into different corresponding levels, there was in general six levels, A, B, C, D, E. Each level could be further split into smaller levels. For example, if a mission is easier than D level difficulty but greater than E level difficulty, then it would be classified as E+ level. Its opposite would be E- level, the normal being E level.
The minor quests given by John were all E- or E level quests that would not cause Ye Qi his life while the quests he received from Old Walter would range from E+ to D-, there was even a D that one time.
"C+ Quest: Curious Expansion. Investigate the reason for Fraser Street's boss, 'Mad Dog' Noctis' sudden expansion of his territory. Eliminate the hidden threat."
"F*ck!"
When he opened the paper, the hint of the quest's level rang out beside Ye Qi's ears. It made him curse aloud. When he first met Old Walter, the system had directly given him two quests, "C+ Quest: Finish the quests given by Old Walter ten times," and "E Quest: Raise character level to 5". Initially Ye Qi was curious why a series of E+, D- quests and that isolated D level quest would be classified at a C+ quest but now he understood why. The earlier quests were just preparation for this final quest!
Naturally, the experience awarded for quest mission correspond to the difficulty of the quest itself. The more difficult the quest, the greater the experience. For example, E level quests could sometimes even be completed without combat, while D level quests definitely required combat. Even though of all the quests Ye Qi had been given, the most difficult one was only D level, it did not take away from Ye Qi's understanding of the difficulty of C+ quests. Ye Qi was tasked to walk into the lair of Blood Dolls for his earlier D level quest. If Ye Qi was not clever and lucky enough to dismantle the attack of 10 crazed Blood Dolls one by one, he would been torn into pieces by those savage beasts!
Since D level quests were already so difficult, Ye Qi understood perfectly how impossible this C+ level quest, that was two level greater than D level, was going to be.
"Looks like much preparation is needed this time!"
Ye Qi pulled his leather coat closer and with a rudimentary plan forming in his mind, the young man disappeared into the night.
[1] Sad to say but I don’t quite understand the calculation here either. It’s confusing even in the raw.