Corwin now had the first of the ten items he wanted and was level four. Roughly seven hours had passed which was only about 2h20m in real life so the night was still young. The next growth item was a reward for the first solo clear of hell-mode of the level five dungeon Grimsbane. Grimsbane was a special dungeon replicated in every novice village in the Kingdom of Orleans, so this was basically a race among everyone in the whole kingdom.
Corwin bought 25 level zero trash rings to make sure he could get the ring of hidden attributes to level five. He used his only mana crystal to upgrade it. At common tier it offered +1 Agi/Level and +1 Luck/Level. The ring now took 2 Mana Crystals to upgrade to Bronze Tier. Corwin sacrificed 20 trash rings and equipped the Level 4 Ring of hidden attributes, saving the level 5 upgrade so that he could still equip the ring.
He then went to the alchemist once more and bought some low-level speed and slow potions to continue to take advantage of agility, 10 each for 20 silver. Being flush with money he bought 5 Healing Potions for 1 gold each. He also bought 2 poison potions for 5 gold each. The poison was very expensive but necessary since only DoT damage would ignore level suppression.
He then went to the blacksmith bought a trash level four sword with nice damage and durability, that only required five strength from the blacksmith for another 60 silver. He bought a similar off-hand sword for 40 silver. Both of these were only nice by these early game standards but that was enough for the moment. He continued by buying trash level 4 armor for all of his armor slots just to get some defense against AoE’s, which generally did less damage per hit than direct attacks, but might make it possible for him to get hit once and live. That armor cost a total of 3 gold.
Before heading back out he did a quick check of the market. He found someone selling the common pierce skill book for swordsmen for thirty silver. He quickly bought it. He also found someone selling the common parry skill for swordsmen for fifty silver. He also bought this.
He went to a level 7 area to grind wild boars with 3 levels of level suppression. With the level suppression he did very little damage to the boars but fortunately by poisoning his sword he could take advantage of DoT stacks. Each dose of poison lasted an hour on his sword so he could grind away successfully. He was able to collect boar tusks and hides for his effort but using poison unfortunately spoiled the meat. The boars would very rarely drop a trash item. It took around 15m for the poison to kill a single boar, but this was phenomenal levelling speed as the boar gave 1,000,000 XP. After 1 hour, Corwin encountered an elite boar.
The elite boar charged at Corwin and he used a parry to deflect its tusks away while he sidestepped behind. He took advantage of the opening to throw a slow potion on the elite boar and hit it with his poisoned swords causing two stacks of DoT effects. The boar came back around and this time he dodged. He felt like a Spanish bullfighter all that was missing was the red cloth. Each time the bull charged and he dodged then hit its flank with the swords. The fight was anti-climactic until the elite boar went berserk. It’s charges were suddenly much faster, as the berserk improved agility a lot. The timing was still the same as the attack patterns didn’t change they were just faster. Corwin regularly comboed with parry into slash and pierce, developing his skills and soon the elite boar fell to a poison tick.
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The loot was exciting, it dropped the uncommon assassin skill book Finesse. This was a powerful passive skill that increased the damage of all other assassin skills by 1% per level. While only an uncommon skill it was a must have and hence more valuable than most rare skills. He could use it to trade for good swordsman skills since he didn’t need to sell it for money.
After finishing the elite Corwin had enough experience to reach level 5. This levelling speed requires a bit of an explanation for you to understand how rare it is. Normally, players could only fight enemies of the same level and a level was typically designed to take around 1-3 days to complete for lower levels. However, each level required roughly 4 times the experience of the previous level. This mean the boars gave 1,000,000 XP which was a pittance when going from 160,000,000 to 640,000,000 XP for level 7 to level 8 but was supercharged for going from level 4 to level 5 as level 5 required only 10,000,000 XP. To prevent people from levelling up quickly on higher level monsters powerful level suppression is applied which reduces damage dealt and increases damage received. Of course, Corwin could only get away with dealing with higher level enemies because of the silver and the poison as well as his ability to not get hit. The fact that DoT didn’t get decreased by level suppression is part of why poison was so expensive. To be honest DoT was basically a powerful exploit, and in the past they had patched the game so that DoT would be effected by level suppression in the 2nd patch they released. Corwin happily took advantage of the narrow window to maximize his gains.
Corwin continued his dodging oriented plan and put all his points into agility. He excitedly equipped the common level 5 off-hand sword, sacrificed 5 trash rings to level his hidden ring of attributes and looked over himself with pride.
Corwin Swordborn
Spoiler :
Level: 5 (27%* of level 6)
Str: 10 (Base: 5)
Agi: 35 (Base: 30)
Con: 5 (Base: 5)
Int: 5 (Base: 5)
Cha: 5 (Base:5)
Luck 10 (Base:5)
HP: 525/525(100+CON per level)
MP: 525/525 (100+INT per level)
Def: 21 (CON + Item Def)
MDef: 5 (INT + Item Def)
MW: Trash Tier, Level 4 Longsword.
Damage 16-20 Durability 9/10 Requirements: 9 Strength
OW: Common Tier, Level 5 Longsword, +5STR
Damage 15-20 Durability 14/15 Requirements: 10 Strength
MA: Trash Tier, Level 4 Plate Armor 4Def
LA: Trash Tier, Level 4 Plate Cuisse, 4Def
B: Trash Tier, Level 4 Plate Boots, 4Def
G: Trash Tier, Level 4 Plate Gauntlets, 4Def
RR: Common Level 5 Hidden Ring of Attributes (Divine Growth Ring) +5 AGI +5LCK
LR: None
AM: None
MW=Main Weapon OW=Offhand Weapon MA= Main Armor LA = Leg Armor B= Boots G= Gloves RR = Right Ring, LR = Left Ring, AM = Amulet
*=Includes experience from level 5