Translated by: 狗不理
Edited by: Nagi
TLCed by: 白酒鬼
Here’s a song that I like:
On this day, The Strange World was set to open and every person in Empire was incomparably excited. After all, their actions in the game would have profound impacts on their future.
"Entering the game, our first priority will be to rush levels. Only upon reaching level 10 will we be able to enter the big cities. Before that, since everyone will be placed into one of 50-60 villages, the chances of us meeting will be slim to none." Liu Mengxiao briefed everyone.
Hearing this point, everyone nodded in agreement. With seven people split amongst 50-60 villages, if would truly be a miracle if they managed to meet.
"Alright, there's only 30 minutes left till noon, the game will start soon. Let's hurry up and start preparing!" Hua Feng laughed, while glancing at his watch. With only a half hour to go, everyone had to make preparations to enter the game. Otherwise, if they took too long, they would get caught in the crowd. Then, they might not even be able to leave the village, much less hunt!
Agreeing once more, everyone nodded their heads. The bit of time before the game was extremely precious, so without wasting any words, they all returned to their own rooms.
The moment the clock hit 12, Lin Fan immediately put on his helmet, and entered the game. Upon entering, the first sound he heard was that of war drums echoing. Following that, his character was brought into view.
"Login!" as he said that, the originally greyed out icon suddenly lit up. He immediately clicked on the icon. His world went dark for an instant and he was teleported to a dilapidated village.
[Ding! Login successful!]
Seeing this system message, Lin Fan started looking around. As he was observing his surroundings, a figure appeared in his field of view.
"There must be quests in this village. However, I can't accept them at the moment!" Seeing the sea of people already entering the village, Lin Fan decided that accepting quests would take too long. Instead, he felt that venturing out the village to hunt monsters would be more efficient. Anyways, after 2 or so hours, the crowd of people would have mostly dispersed.
After thinking for awhile, Lin Fan exited the Beginner's Village. Only then did he decide to check his inventory. Upon checking, apart from a Beginner's Staff, and Beginner's Cloth Robes, there was nothing else.
[Beginner's Staff: Magic Attack 0-2
Beginner’s Cloth Robes: Defense 1-3]
Seeing the equipment in front of him, Lin Fan couldn’t resist giving a helpless laugh before equipping them. After doing so, he proceeded to check his individual stats.
[Player: Devil May Cry
Class: Mage
LVL: 1
STR: 1
AGI: 2
INT: 4 (2 M.Atk/Int)
M.ATK: 8 – 10
P. DEF: 5 – 7
Skills: Fireball]
"Not bad. At least mages have a starting skill. Furthermore, a magic attack of 8-10 should be able to deal with the defense of level 4 monsters!" A smile appeared on Lin Fan's face as he started walking further and further away from the village. He bypassed the Level 1 Snow Rabbits and Level 2 Sheep, instead opting to head directly towards the level 3 and 4 monsters.
[Wildcat. Level 3. HP: 100!]
The rest of its stats did not pop up. However, Lin Fan knew that if he took it head on, he’d likely get sent back to the beginners' village.
"Fireball!" Lin Fan quickly cast his skill. Immediately, a ball of fire took shape, and launched itself towards the Wildcat.
"Boom!" A fiery explosion resounded throughout the forest and soon after, a [-9] appeared on top of the monster. Afterwards, the Wildcat emitted a shrill cry, and pounced towards Lin Fan.
"It's fine as long as I'm able to damage it!" Lin Fan let out a breath. Following that, he once again cast fireball and launched it at the monster. This time a [-11] was displayed.
[System Message: Player Devil May Cry has hit weak point: eye. For 10 seconds, the monster is blinded and defence is reduced!]
"So its eyes are its weak points!" Seeing the blinded Wildcat, Lin Fan naturally didn’t hold back. He threw a fireball and caused another [-11] . Under the continuous barrage of fireballs, the Wildcat soon let out a dying howl.
[System Message: Player Devil May Cry killed a Wildcat.]
Following this message, Lin Fan was awarded 50 exp and his exp bar surged upward.
"To reach level 2, I need 200 exp. In other words, I only need to kill another 3 of these monsters!" Lin Fan knew that this absurd amount of experience he was getting was due to him farming above his level. If he was already level 3, then these monsters would only give out around 20 points.
Moving forward, he repeated the process on another Wildcat not far away. Lin Fan first blinded it, then proceeded to consecutively launch fireballs at it. Unexpectedly, after it died, 3 coppers dropped from it's corpse.
"The first monster didn't drop anything, but the second one dropped 3 copper. Even with the level gap, The Strange World's drop rates are so low!" Lin Fan sat down after picking up the coins. Jumping levels to kill monsters came at a price. After killing the two monsters, his MP was already completely empty. Luckily, he was still level 1 so his MP wasn't high. After sitting for a brief minute, it had completely recovered.
Upon recovering, Lin Fan once again proceeded to slay two more Wildcats. When he was finished, a flash of golden light shone above him indicating that Lin Fan reached level 2.
"En? This is?" Shortly after, an extremely large Wildcat appeared in Lin Fan's view. Furrowing his brows, he realized that it should be a leader-level monster[1].
"Should i fight or escape?" Lin Fan asked himself while observing the monster ahead. Although it was only an Leader-level monster, worse than even Elite monsters, it should still drop something good!
Lin Fan took a look at his status. After leveling up, his stats had increased slightly. Moreover, after leveling up, his MP had been restored. After contemplating for a second, Lin Fan concluded that he should be able to take that monster on.
"For riches and honor!" Steeling his resolve, he took a breath and launched a fireball at the monster. A [-6] drifted out from the monster into view.
"The damage is still decent!" Seeing the damage output, Lin Fan couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. The HP of this monster was 120, only 20 points higher than the regular Wildcats. While it's defense was a bit higher, it still wasn't enough to block all the damage.
The Apex Wildcat turned and charged towards Lin Fan. Despite this, Lin Fan kept himself calm and unhurried, launching a fireball at the monster's eyes. This time however, despite a [-7] appearing, the Wildcat didn't seem to become blinded.
The Wildcat reached Lin Fan, it's two claws swiping towards him.
Seeing the incoming claws, Lin Fan sidestepped, avoiding it's assault and countering with a fireball. This shot seemed to be more effective than the last as the Wildcat let out a howl.
"Wanting to scratch me, that won’t be so easy!" Lin Fan escaped behind the Wildcat while firing another fireball, after launching, he once again escaped to the right.
When the Apex Wildcat turned to face Lin Fan, Lin Fan had already run off to another direction, launching yet another fireball at it's body.
"Boom!" facing these repeated attacks, the Apex Wildcat's HP quickly started to decrease. In spite of this, Lin Fan also wasn't in such a good condition. His MP was on the verge of depletion. This showdown between the Apex Wildcat and Lin Fan was still anyone's victory!
"Boom!" as the final fireball hit the Wildcat's head, with a final [-6] , Lin Fan discovered that the monster was still standing, with only a single sliver of hp left.
"Damn monster!" Lin Fan lightly cursed, once again dodging the Wildcat's claws. Now all out of MP, Lin Fan could only resort to whacking the monster with the Beginner's Staff.
A [-1] appeared as the Apex Wildcat was finally taken down! Before falling, the monster let out a final, unwilling howl.
"Whoosh!" once more, golden light appeared above Lin Fan as he reached level 3.
[1] Assumption here. Elite refers to specific type of monster, whereas Leaders are heads of normal grade mobs. I.e. Elite is a category, Leader is a rank.