As the Kobold was killed, the unending rage flowing through Koji’s mind started to diminish and he felt back in control. There was also a change in the color of the blade. It had changed from red to the color of regular iron. It probably meant that the Dagger’s Frenzy option was on Cooldown.
After retrieving the weapon, Koji opened up his brand new gift box AKA Wooden Chest. To his disappointment, this time there were only 2 things inside: a coin with 50 written on it and a pair of leather gloves.
Leather Gloves Simple leather gloves for extra protection. Armor(Gloves) Gloves SlotNo Options
“I suppose my earlier drops were a fluke... And my second chest was a rare one. Well, thanks to my gambler skill I can find use for these kind of trash drops.”
Koji decided to use the gloves later as Betting material. The little bit of extra protection could turn out to be important but he doubted it would be much use against strong opponents anyway. As for the coin, when he picked it up he simply got a notification.
50 TP has been added to your inventory.
“I’m not sure of the value of this currency yet... Considering I got 10 as japtem, 50 is probably not much either” The familiar portal appeared in the end of the room. Koji took a bit of time to rest and recover his energies. He checked the time and still had 5 hours left in the clock. “Hmm… Bill said that after every Level we get Hub time. But this is Level 0. People are supposed to go straight into the next one right after defeating the easy first boss. But that is not really the best option, is it?” Staying for the entire duration of the Time Limit. The more he thought about it, the more he felt confident in this gamble. If he was right, he could gain a headstart on his competitors, or at the very least make it up a bit for his physical ineptitude. He felt his Gambler’s Pride Cooldown and realized it was only 15 minutes away from coming back up, while Chaotic Barrier had 10 minutes left. “I wonder if I just activate the skill outside of combat, can I increase my levels in it like that? I don’t think they would make it easy like that… but it shouldn’t hurt to try, right?” He took that time to rest and right as Chaotic Barrier CD was up he activated it. The translucent armor covered him but nothing else happened. No bolts were shot either. The duration ended just as his other skill came back. He opened his Status but nothing had changed. He tried focusing on the individual skill. An individual screen popped up.
Chaotic BarrierActive Skill (Defense) CD: 15 minutes Creates an unstable defensive barrier around the user by condensing the vital energy, Qi. The barrier durability increases with Skill Level and Vitality. Will shoot out Energy Bolts randomly towards hostile targets. Offensive power of Energy Bolts increases with Skill Level and Vitality. Lasts for 5 minutes. Duration increases with Endurance.
“It’s the same. There is no way to track the progress to the next Level, so I can’t tell if I’m getting anything out of this.” Not wanting to waste any more time with this, he activated Gambler’s Pride, betting the gloves he had gotten previously.
Equipment Lottery Activated. Determining results.... Congratulations! You Got... Equal Equip! Crude Sledgehammer has been added to your inventory.
Koji immediately equipped the item from his inventory. When it was materialized in his hands, he discovered that it was too heavy for him to use. He could barely lift the thing, using it combat would be next to impossible. Well he could just use it to gamble again after the skill came back. After thinking this, he realized a hidden strength of his skill. As long as he got any Equip, even if it was useless to him, he could use it to Gamble again.
Since using the skills didn’t give him any sign if they were improving or not, he decided it would best to use the time left to train his weak body. After all, Bill had made it very clear that training was the main method of raising attributes. Out of those, Strength and Endurance seemed to be the most straightforward to train. For Strength, he could just keep practicing with the Sledgehammer. He could also do some bodyweight exercises like pushups and squats. For Endurance, all he had to do was run some laps around the Level. After pondering a bit, Koji thought it was best to train his endurance. Right now, other than relying on Crazy Dagger, his main method of Fighting was a hit-and-run strategy, using his crossbow to poke and his Barrier for protection whenever the enemy got close enough. To keep that up against stronger enemies he had to be able to keep running for extended periods of time. It also had the added benefit of increasing the duration of the Barrier. Although how much it would increase was still a Mystery. He wanted to train Vitality, but had no idea how to do that right now.
Having made up his mind, he retrieved the sledgehammer and started to jog around the room. After doing a few laps, he was feeling bored and decided to go back to the previous rooms just to add some variety to the runs. Once he got back to the first room, he saw something that surprised him. There was a small goblin there, identical to the one he had killed before.
“Oh... so they come back after a while... then if I keep killing them...”
He discovered something RPG players were very familiar with. The joy of farming a Spawn Point.
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On another corner of this galaxy, a hooded figure was busy working on a dozen screens, keyboards and joysticks. It was frenetically typing, controlling something, running calculations, monitoring the screens and doing God’s know what else, when a tall, red-skinned, humanoid entered the dark room. He was wearing a grey dress hat that had holes for his 2 long horns. His face had a permanent sarcastic feature. On his body, he was wearing a stylish grey vest over a purple shirt with a silver bowtie in the middle. Grey pants and purple dress shoes made up the lower part of his attire. On his hand, a beautifully carved cane with an exact golden replica of his head on top.
“Boss, how can I help?” The figure pulled its hood back, revealing head with almost a hundred eyes that circled around his pearl-shaped head, spreading around 360°. Even as he spoke in a robotic manner, he never stopped working. He was a Monitor, a creature responsible for tracking, monitoring and reporting on hundreds of Level X competitors.
“How are the new contestants doing? Any interesting prospects we should keep your eyes on?” The devil-like humanoid had a smooth, deep voice that would make one feel like hearing Jazz music as he spoke.
“11% of the participants have grasped the secret of Level 0. We have a few prospects that secured a significant advantage.”
“11% huh? That’s significantly higher than when we last ran a Human Season.”
“Yes, apparently, humans have taken a keener interest on games in the last few decades. Their experience with them makes identifying these sorts of opportunities more easily.”
“I see. Any interesting Skills dropped?”
“Let’s see. We have a few strong Skills already, like the Golden Hammer and Despair Zone. There is also a Gambler skill. I remember you are fond of those.”
“Oh really?” The boss laughed in a manly way as he started exiting the room. “Mark the stronger prospects. I’ll take a look at their footage later. Also, let me know if this Gambler makes past Level 2. If he survives until then, he will become an interesting candidate for the spotlight.”
“Of course, boss”
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He was finally done. Koji had farmed the goblins for the last 4 hours and 30 minutes. He killed the first goblin by shooting with the crossbow a few times as he ran around it, then moving in to finish the job with the dagger. He activated the barrier right as he closed the distance, eliminating the possibility of the goblin counter-attacking, repeating the same method. The respawn time was 30 minutes, he discovered. It took about 5 minutes to kill a goblin so he had 25 minutes in between. That time was used to do some Endurance training by running around the room. He also sometimes did pushups and tried to swing the sledgehammer to break the monotony and rested a bit before the next fight. In total, he had done that 10 times, leaving 35 minutes on the clock.
The results were: +0.2 Endurance, +0.1 Strength, +0.1 Willpower, 0.1 Dexterity. Every time he reached a 0.1 increase, he got a notification. The increases to Endurance and Strength were expected, since he was training for it. But the last 2 increased as he fought the creature. Dexterity, he got while running around and shooting the 6th goblin. Willpower he got when the Dagger went off Cooldown. It eventually dominated him, but he tried hard to resist, and got an increase for it. He also found out he could now resist the effect of the Frenzy for almost 2 minutes before going berserk. Additionally, he had gotten much better aiming the crossbow while running.
As for his skills, he was using Barrier in every fight and it was always off cooldown for the next one. After he activated it on the 2nd goblin, the level increased. The bolt that occasionally shot out of it was now the size of a fist and was significantly more powerful, managing to momentarily stun the goblin whenever it hit. He also used the gambler skill whenever it was off Cooldown. He had gotten a Wooden Chest out of the 2nd goblin killed and it yielded him 30 more TP and an iron ring with no special options. He used the iron ring to Bet and got nothing out of it. But the skill Leveled up.
But as he killed the goblins he didn’t get any more drops until the 9th one. He decided not to use the Sledgehammer to bet because it was useful as training tool for Strength. He also tried using Darts to bet but it didn’t work. Therefore, he had to wait until another wooden chest to use Gambler’s Pride again. This time he had gotten 2 items: simple leather boots and a Short Spear. The boots had no Options and so he decided weren’t worth keeping and used it to Gamble. Again, he got Nothing.
Short Spear A common short spear. Mostly used for thrusting attacksWeapon(Spear) 1-Hand SlotNo options
He tried the new weapon out on the last enemy. It was a light spear that could be handled well with just one hand. But using both to wield it gave a significant boost to its piercing power. After killing the 10th goblin with a spear thrust to the gut. He stored the weapon and walked in front of the portal. He decided it would be best to wait for 30 minutes, since he was completely sore all over his body. For some reason, the recovery speed in this place was significantly higher than usual, seeing that he would never be able to do that sort of strenuous activity for almost 5 hours. He would rest for 30 minutes and leave with 10 minutes left on the clock for safety. He checked his Status, feeling proud of his progress.
Status Window Name:Koji KawamuraRace:Human TP:90 Attributes Strength:0.3Dexterity:0.4 Vitality:0.2Endurance:0.4 Perception:0.5Willpower:0.7 Mental Power:0.5
Skill List Gambler's Pride(A)LVL 2/10Chaotic Barrier(A)LVL 2/20
Inventory Rabbit Foot Necklace[Neck]Light Arm Crossbow Korlag’s Vessel of Rage60x Small Darts[Ammo] Crude SledgehammerShort Spear
After the rest period. He stepped into the portal feeling more confident and anxious about the challenges that waited for him. Unlike in his previous life, he wasn’t overwhelmed by it, but rather felt excited at this new opportunity. He would not waste this second chance like he wasted his previous life.