While Ryan was still reeling from the shock of what just happened, Mark sent him a message as soon as he logged into the game. "Hey! You coming?" Ryan snapped out of it and bitterly smiled at this message. One day he had to thank Mark, or rather their guild leader, everything started thanks to them.

"Not interested. I am fine with fighting mobs for now." He sent a curt reply. He paused for a moment, then warned Mark again. "I think you should quit that guild. Something is off about your guild leader." Ryan would have preferred to stay away from this entirely, but Mark was one of the few genuinely kind and good people he knew. He did not want to leave his friend in a lurch.

Moreover, each death cost attribute points. So he would hate for Mark to lose so much when this game was not as simple as it seemed. Perhaps it was time to sit down and talk to him. Mark thought that he did not know, but his mother told him about it.

During the accident time, Mark had secretly loaned his mother about 5000 dollars when he himself was struggling. He had stuck by him through thick and thin, so he earned at least this much trust. Ryan let out a deep breath. A lot was changing rapidly in his life, and he needed to get on top of things very quickly.

While he was mulling over everything, a dire wolf silently spawned next to him. After all, he had logged out in the middle of the forest, so this was bound to happen. Ryan's eyes instantly flashed towards the beast, locking onto it like a predator. Time to get back to work!

He swung and punched at the wolf, using all of his newly acquired skills. Soon, two more showed up for the party, and the simple fight turned chaotic. But this was not the first bloody rumble for Ryan. In about a minute and a half, all three wolves lay on the ground, dead and lifeless, and he also received a bunch of notifications. However, he was not done yet.

Ryan immediately grabbed onto the wolves one after the other and started draining the blood from their bodies in a hurry. He was able to get two before the third one disappeared as light dust. "Hmmm… it's best to keep them alive by injuring them badly." He wiped the blood off his mouth and made a note.

This time, even though he didn't need to drink blood just yet, he decided to do it anyway so that he could unlock some skill related to it. If the game system was not handing out skills to him, then he could only rely on this rote grind method to obtain more on his own.

"I wonder how many more kills I need to unlock another skill?" Ryan mumbled as he opened his system interface to look at all the notifications.

[Claw- Lvl.1 → Claw- Lvl.2]

[Punch- Lvl.1 → Punch- Lvl.2]

This was amazing! Ryan licked his lips, which were painted by the blood of the wolves, and grinned widely. While he was researching the game, some players had suggested saving the skill points only for rare and special skills because the common ones were easier to level up.

Others, however, suggested using skill points immediately to gain more strength and take advantage of the early boost in power to outlevel many players and explore new dangerous territories. Both ways had pros and cons, but Ryan knew that because his class was unique, it would be much smarter for him to save the skill points.

The speed with which he pushed the two basic skills to the next level only proved him right. "Time to find more wolves and grind these bitches." He hurriedly started running around, trying to spot any dire wolves in the vicinity.

Not too far away from him, a slender woman huffed as she placed her hands on her hips and pouted in a cute way. "That guy was just here! Damn bastard. He must have logged out or something." She whined to the guy next to her.

"Well, he is not here now. So…"

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"Martin! He humiliated me badly. You have to take revenge for me!" Sara huffed, her big chest raising up and down in anger. The armor that she was currently wearing only made this scene look more tantalizing.

Martin gulped, watching this amazing scene. His hands itched to touch the goodies in front of him, but he did not dare to as Sara was the guild leader's cousin. Otherwise, he would have long since made his moves. Thankfully, an opportunity had presented itself. Who in their right mind would piss off a beauty like this? He couldn't understand, but such uncultured people deserved death!

Being a Level 30 Paladin Tank player, he was confident in dealing with some random shrimp. So he didn't rush things. First, he would deal with this uncultured fellow, and then he would start making subtle moves. Ah! Life would be too sweet if a woman like this became his girlfriend, even if it was just inside the game.

Martin couldn't help but salivate as he walked around with the beauty, trying to find the beast that had wronged her.

Ryan drained the dire wolf he was holding completely and tossed its body onto the ground. The beast then disappeared as light dust the next second. "This method is really the best." He watched the dust scatter and nodded. He changed his strategy from first killing the beast and then draining the blood, which didn't give him much time to complete the deed.

Instead, he injured the beast severely first, then killed it by draining the blood. This both helped him in his grind and also re-upped his health, making him instantly combat-ready if another foe showed up.

Ryan quickly added his 5 attribute points to strength, agility, and defense in the same 2:2:1 ratio and saved both his skill points. After grinding for half an hour more, he now had two additional skills, [Sprint] and [Kick]. These were all the basic skills that most players by now had unlocked. Unfortunately, the elusive skill he sought had yet to materialize.

"Come on! Give me a skill related to blood!" Ryan mumbled and began looking for his next target. The dire wolf zone had mobs from level 5 to level 10, so he continued hunting in this same spot, planning to move to the next zone only at level 7 or 8.

Rather than increasing his level, he wanted to get a range of new skills and level them sufficiently so that he could actually face an elite rank beast. At his current skill set, soloing such a beast seemed impossible. Moreover, the players who had shared their experience fighting against such elite rank beasts, always mentioned that these beasts roam around in groups. So it was possible that he might have to face multiple elite rank beasts at the same time.

Ryan still remembered the boar herd he had seen a few miles back. He might have to fight against something like that, though he hadn't spotted any elite rank boars in that particular group. Thinking about what strategy he could use in this scenario, he continued grinding at full speed.

"There! That's him! That bastard!" Sara pointed her finger at the busily hunting figure.

Standing next to her, the paladin frowned. "That person seems to be a brawler, but his movements are very sloppy. How pathetic. His skill level is even worse than that of a beginner. What is he trying to do? Hit the wolves so that they don't get hurt? See how he is missing all the vital strikes? Tch. Tch. Too pitiful."

Martin made sure that the woman next to him was sufficiently impressed as he continued making a few more critical observations. "Look at that. That angle. Not efficient enough. He has to punch from the other side. See, the next move is also wrong." This continued for a couple of minutes until Sara herself couldn't stand it any longer.

"Martin, I already know these things. He is just a noob. You don't have to tell me that. Can we quickly finish this matter and leave? I still needed to level up so that I can heal for the guild run later."

The paladin scratched his head. Perhaps he had overdone it. "Alright. I agree. There is no point in wasting time here with this idiot. I will take care of this in a second." However, just as he took a step forward, suddenly the person in front of them started madly running.

"What the hell?" The paladin's eyes widened in shock. Did he by chance notice that they were standing here? No, impossible. They were standing quite far away. But why was he suddenly running? Even the dire wolves he was fighting hadn't been killed yet.

"Hey! Hey! Look there! He is escaping! Let's go and get him. Quick." Sara started shouting. She didn't want this scum to get away at any cost. Seeing the guy fleeing and the two wolves chasing after him, the duo also started running behind him. However, they quickly found themselves falling behind.

"What the hell is up with that idiot's speed?" They clearly saw him struggling with dire wolves so it wasn't too hard to guess that his level was somewhere around 5 to 7, but his speed seemed to be too high for that level.

Martin didn't really care about this because his speed was still higher than this. After all, he was level 30. If he was alone, he could have already caught up to him and skewered him. But the problem was that Sara was also a beginner player, so he couldn't leave her alone and run faster. And from the looks of it, she was already starting to look tired and pant slightly.

This was one of the main issues of 'Mana Online'. The game was so realistic that even their stamina and abilities reflected the harsh truth.

After a few seconds, Sara was completely done. She simply couldn't run any longer. "Damn it." She gritted her teeth in anger, glaring at the figure disappearing in the distance. The guy had already humiliated her, and now it was repeating all over again. No, that won't do. She absolutely wanted to teach that damned guy a lesson today!

"Go! You go and chase after him! I will wait here." She seethed in anger.

"Ummm. Are you sure? We are not in a safe zone?" Martin looked reluctant, but seeing the look on Sara's face, he quickly chased after the culprit.