After accepting the mission, I went to the border of the village. I saw many other players there already started to kill monsters. But what they chose to kill was only the chickens that the villagers breed. Those chicken had low attack power, but the experience gained would also be pathetically low.
Shaking my head, I continued going further into the the deep forest located outside the village. Not walking too far, I already saw a pack of wild dogs wandering around in the woods.
I pulled out the damaged sword and attacked the nearest wild dog!
“6!”
A red number popped out above the wild dog’s head. It seemed to be a critical strike, otherwise it would be impossible for me to inflict that much damage with only an Attack power of 3.
Of course, the subsequent attacks only inflicted 2-3 damage points. But it was only a level 2 wild dog with 30 hit points, which was an easy fight for me.
“Alright!”
The first wild dog died. I examined the corpse and found three copper coins and a fur: Mission item!
So this was what the Village Guard Harker needed; an easy mission. I continued to kill the other wild dogs. After each killing, I would rest a bit to let my hit points recover. Although the recovery was kind of slow, but it was for saving money. I estimated that nobody could currently afford to buy healing potions for practicing.
Before long, I finished collecting all 20 wild dogs’ fur. Killing more wild dogs didn’t result in mission item drops. I also rose to level 2. The attack power increased a bit and my max HP changed from 60 to 80. It seemed that raising in level would add quite some increase in the max HP. I also gained 5 additional Attribute Points to spend with my level up. Without any hesitation, I poured it all on my Strength. This early in the game, partying with others would be out of the questions. Without high Strength, how could I survive by my own?
Gradually, more and more players came wandered farther from the village and start coming to this place. But I noticed that most of them were not collecting any wild dog’s fur. It seemed that only a few players were aware of this mission. After all, the village guard was only walking back and forth in the village, without a sign of a ‘Mission’ on him to be seen.
Immediately, I ran back to the village and handed the mission items to the village guard. The reward turned out to be generous. I received 80 copper coins for killing 20 wild dogs. Money was important, especially at this stage. Who knew what the exchange rate would be like. But players would only buy gold coins, not copper coins! (1 gold coin = 100 silver coins = 10,000 copper coins)
With the previous experience, I hastily walked around the village to talk to the NPCs. Finally another mission!
Mission Statement: Help the village chief. Exterminate the wolves at Wild Wolf Valley located east of the village. Bring back 50 Wolf’s Teeth to the chief! Be careful, it would be best if you find some companion to finish this task, these wolves are very fierce. Many village finest men had been bitten to death by these wolves!
This mission was more difficult. Not only the level of the wolves were higher, but the village chief also indicated the need to form a party. I placed this mission aside for now and looked for other missions.
Mission Statement: Ahua, a villager, has planted many tomatoes on the hillside. But recently, wild wolves often appear outside the village. Please collect 10 tomatoes for Ahua.
Mission Statement: Kill 20 wild dogs outside the village. Collect their teeth and deliver them to village guard Harker!
…
Collecting fruits and killing wild dogs should not be a problem. Anyway, killing wild dogs could make you level up quite easy, while doing missions would also made you level up fast. The mission reward was 200 EXP while killing a level 1 monster would give you 10 EXP. Doing missions would double the leveling up speed.
At some distant field, many players were busy killing monsters. I would not go there and disturb their practice (most of them were groups, and snatching their prey could result in being PKed). So I circled the village and from the east side went to the woods. In the distance, I could already see Ahua’s tomato field.
After killing several wild dogs without a single drop of wild dog’s teeth, I was feeling a little depressed. Was this mission toying me?
Further away into the woods, I noticed that the wild dogs I had killed so far were level 1 monsters. But here were level 3 monsters: Ferocious Dog!
Silently, I rushed out to attack with the damaged sword!
“3!”
The red numbers made me cautious. This level 3 dog defense was much higher than the level 1 dogs. With me currently at level 2, my hit would usually caused 5 damage points.
This level 3 ferocious dog had 50 HP that I had to hit 17 times to make the kill. Meanwhile, it also bit me often. Although I only lost 2 HP each time, by the time I killed the dog, my own HP had also dropped to the bottom line.
Experience Points +30!
Flipping the dog’s corpse, I discovered 14 copper coins, a tooth, and a tattered armor. I picked it up and look at the attributes:
Wild Dog Fur Armor (white equipment)
Defense: +5
This was better compared to my damaged coat. At least the Defense rose quite a bit. I equipped it immediately. Later on when I reached level 10 and chose the Thief class, I would only be able to wear leather armor anyway. But on a second thought, wouldn’t it be pitiful if I was still only wearing this by the time I reached level 10?