This time around as we made our way through the Western Woods we avoided boars for a different reason, we wanted to avoid killing them so we wouldn’t accidentally level up. We wanted the bonus for killing a monster 5 levels higher than us.
Wolves were a lot rarer, you had to go much deeper into the forest before you would begin to find signs of them. And since neither us of were woodsmen in real life, we didn’t know how to search for signs of a wolf. Sometimes we would find an old dried out pawprint, but our only clue was to go deeper, where more monsters resided. We followed the compass in our UI west, trying to put distance between us and the village.
After about two hours of walking we arrived at the wooded foothills, that’s when we knew we were making real progress. Now there were more non-violent wildlife, unlike the forests before that were littered with snakes and tusked boars, this place had deer and rabbits. It seems like some other creature scared the more violent animals away and controlled the area. Before we went in we ate the simple rabbit and cooked rabbit. It seemed like stronger effects would override weaker ones, but would leave additional effects intact. We both currently had a food buff of +10 HP/SP Regen, +10 Speed, and +5 Attack.
Tim suggested that we make as lots of noise to attract attention, so we crashed through branches, attacked a dear and had it bleed all over, and made loud shouting voice.
Sure enough, it worked.
---
I saw Tim tense up beside me, I followed his eyes and looked ahead. There was a pack of 7 wolfs coming towards us. I immediately took a dose of the Basic Speed potion and I charged forward.
Tim was responsible for checking the level of the wolves and killing them from lowest to highest, my job is to try to attack and draw agro from as many as possible.
Draw Aggro, check, the wolves started all bunching up to attack me. My original plan of dodging to the side was not going to work well. I need to make sure I wouldn’t get pinned down.
I made a break for the left and I could see all the wolves follow me, out of the Corner of my eye I saw Tim running, preparing to make a move. The wolves were dodging trees, clearly they had a smarter AI.
It was 20 meters before the wolves were on me so I made a quick turn and faced them my bronze knife hidden in my hand
Since I managed to turn them a little, the wolf on the right would approach me first. The wolf snarled and jumped at me with his jaws open, ready to bite.
I dashed to the right and stuck my hand with the knife into the wolves open mouth. The wolf snapped down hard, impaling itself on the knife. It squealed and ran out of the way, blocking some of the other wolves and giving me the time I needed to pull out my Iron Dagger and put some distance between myself and the wolves.
Alpha wolf howled angrily after seeing his injured pack member. The wolves came at me we renewed ferocity and I started flailing around.
Pain and terror drove me, each bite was a reminder of what was at stake. As I slashes and jumped my way backwards.
-40!, -49!, -44!
I already almost half of my health, 157/290. Wait 290? And the wolves, they stopped attacking. I checked my log.
[Tim sent you a message – “Stealth”]
[Grey Wolf lvl 12 Killed]
[Lvl up bonus for killing G rated monster more than 5 levels above you]
[Lvled up to 7! +2 Str +2 Int +2 Agi +2 Vit]
[Tim sent you a message – “Stealth”]
I could see Tim hiding behind a tree, and I saw a wolf with its throat slit. Later Tim would tell me how he learned a new skill, sneak attack for attacking a vital point in stealth.
The wolves started all howling in pain, some of them were sniffing and trying to search for time. This wasn’t good, Tim needed to stay hidden unless I was about to die.
“Comeon boys you scared of me or something?” I yelled
[Skill Learned - Taunt lvl 1]
[Attracts agro in an area around you]
All of the wolves immediately charged at me. I guessed it worked too well.
[Grey Wolf lvl 12 Killed]
[Lvl up bonus for killing G rated monster more than 5 levels above you]
[Lvled up to 8! +2 Str +2 Int +2 Agi +2 Vit]
[+1 fame point for killing a G rated Monster]
After seeing this, I immediately used the taunt skill again, if the wolves get distracted, they might notice someone picking them off.
-47! A wolf jumped at me and attached itself to my left leg. -48! Another wolf attached itself to my right leg, I was trapped. With only 67/310 HP and only gaining half a point per second I was going to die real soon.
As the third wolf jumped up to attack my throat, I quickly stabbed straight into his mount, aiming for the brain and instantly killing it. My knife was not going to be retrieved easily
[Grey Wolf lvl 12 Killed]
[Grey Wolf lvl 13 Killed]
[Lvl up bonus for killing G rated monster more than 5 levels above you]
[Lvled up to 9! +2 Str +2 Int +2 Agi +2 Vit]
[+1 fame point for killing a G rated Monster]
[+1 fame point for killing a G rated Monster]
Tim snuck in another kill but was discovered by the Alpha. Inspiration hit me as I realized only three wolves were alive.
I quickly pulled out the stone sword and dropped it on the wolf on my right leg. He squealed, but a few stomps to the head put him into a daze.
I then tried to dig out my Iron knife, but the wolf on my left leg bit down harder and started dragging me. Pulling the knife free I sat up and stabbed for his head.
The wolf dodged, snarling. It ran back a few steps, daring me to come at him.
Instead I walked back a few paces and killed the wolf that was still in a daze.
[Grey Wolf lvl 14 Killed]
[Lvl up bonus for killing G rated monster more than 5 levels above you]
[Lvled up to 10! +2 Str +2 Int +2 Agi +2 Vit]
[+1 fame point for killing a G rated Monster]
The wolf seeing this grew very angry and charged at me. I was able to get a cut across its head staggering it. I pounced on it and ended it.
[Grey Wolf lvl 14 Killed]
[+1 fame point for killing a G rated Monster]
It looks like Tim did his job well, leaving me with only high level wolves so we could get your 10th level off of those.
Tim was having trouble with the Alpha, although they were careful about each other, he had already gotten bit a few times.
But when I came in we were able to encircle the Alpha and made short work of it.
[Grey Wolf lvl 15 Killed]
[Lvl up bonus for killing G rated monster more than 5 levels above you]
[Lvled up to 11! +2 Str +2 Int +2 Agi +2 Vit]
Exhausted we sat down, happy that it worked out. We only needed to kill three more wolves before we could both finish the “Protect the Village” quest. In a party, kill credit was evenly distributed to all members, so it was odd seeing 3.5/5 wolves killed, but it was nice getting XP and loot distributed fairly.
---
Although we were leveling insanely fast, this method can only work against monsters much higher leveled than us. Each level difference meant the monster gave twice as much xp. But that also meant that each level we grew we would get half the amount of XP as before. Wolves were the highest leveled creature discovered so far, and so we probably would have to find a new place much farther away to continue leveling.
There was a new method of leveling, based off a popular powerleveling guide called “Human tide”. Players would each farm a few coppers to purchase a shield, and then talk to the butcher to get a bronze knife. They would then join up in huge groups outside of the western forest, form a massive block of people and start marching, killing anything in their path. If someone died they would run back and join up with the next wave.
Right now we were trying to track down 3 more wolves, we wasted about 30 minutes doing so and I was seriously considering using some Information Broker credit for some tips.
Clink! Clink!
The sound of someone mining! More importantly, the sound of someone with at least a bronze pickaxe. In this forest if we PKed someone and stole his equipment no one would know!
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
But we were not the only ones eyeing the miner. Three wolves were approaching, they were all between level 12-13, we had to save the miner! Player kills would cause the other party to lose everything that was not in an item box, monster kills would not!
Tim shouted “Watch out!” as we hurriedly tried to beat the wolves to the player. That player ducked into a mine of some sort and disappeared from view.
The wolves seemed to have lost the player so they turned on us. We quickly made short work of the wolves, Tim did an obscene amount of damage, and I was able to keep their attention by using taunt. I had 370 HP now, and with my full leather armor I could take a lot of punishment.
Lucky for us we didn’t level since they were only 2 levels above us now. However it seems like we stopped getting fame points after we leveled up to 10. We thought it was strange when the Alpha wolf didn’t give us a fame point, but these three wolf deaths confirmed to us the theory that fame points from G monsters could only be farmed under level 10.
The other player came out, he was a skinny brown haired boy, carrying a bronze pickaxe. “Thanks for saving me!” he said, “I’m Alfred! What’s yours?”
“Sorry” I said, “Please don’t take us killing you personally. You see my friend here just needs to leave Weapon Smithing”
“Wait!” Alfred screamed “I can make it worth your while!”
Tim replied, “Don’t worry, we’ll return the pickaxe soon, and we are good at covering up crimes too.”
“I can get you guys Iron pickaxes!” Alfred desperately pleaded.
Tim motioned for him to go on.
“I got these ores but I can’t refine them since leveling mining through copper and tin is so slow. Level 5 will take forever.”
He pulled out some ores and continued, “There is a bunch of iron in the mine, but I only was able to mine two ores before ruining half of the bronze pickaxe I found. If you can use the iron to make an Iron Pickaxe, we can start mass producing them and make a killing”
“There’s a secret workshop nearby that has a magic powered forge. I don’t know how it works, but I think your weaponsmith friend can use it”
I put down my knife and replied “All right, fair enough, lets split it 3 ways then, everyone gets a piece, and you have to give both of us 10 copper ores”. Alfred looked a little unhappy, but he had to take it.
It took Tim a few minutes to make an Iron bar, it used two Iron ore chunks to make one bar. While waiting I crafted a bunch of wooden handles with some large sticks I found. Tim crafted the first Iron Pickaxe, and soon after that we started making more and more pickaxes.
I joined in on the mining to maximize our profit speed. Alfred was mining manually to maximize the XP gained, so I copied him.
About two hours later I hit level 3 mining, and Tim was complaining that he wasn’t getting much XP from Weapon Smithing anymore. We had emptied all the easy to reach iron veins and we had made 43 Iron pickaxes total, 40 to sell and one for each of us to use. Tim and I pooled our money and convinced Alfred to let us buy out his share of the pickaxes for 550 gold. I provided 150 gold, Tim provided 400 gold so we split the pickaxes 18/22. Alfred was going to stay here for a while because it would be hard to find the way back so he accepted.
There was a strange hole in the cave, we couldn’t see down to the bottom and if we dropped a rock no noise would be made.
It seemed like the perfect place to commit suicide so to Alfred’s surprise, we both jumped off.
---
“Ahhh!” we screamed, even though it was virtual, somehow the robots simulated zero gs and our brains thought we were going to die. As soon as my life was beginning to flash before my eyes I saw a strange message
[Entering Level restricted area – Lvl 100]
[Entry is prohibited, you are 89 levels too low]
[Returning you to your respawn point]
Flash
We were both standing inside the village church. We didn’t lose any XP, somehow we didn’t die. Tim and I looked at each other, we knew once we were level 100 we would come back to check out what that hole was.
Jack ChenHuman - AsianLvl 11HP370 (100 Base + 270 from VIT)HP Regen37 / Minute (10 Base + 27 from VIT)SP460 (100 Base + 360 from INT)SP Regen46 / Minute (10 Base + 36 from INT)Speed:126 (100 Base + 26 from AGI)Base Damage16-31 (1-2 Base + 15-30 from Strength)Strengh30Intelligence36Agility26Vitality27Gold0Fame8Respawn PointVillage Church
[tr][tr][tr]
Perk Name:Perk Rank:Perk Discription:But I’m a Butcher!EBlood and Guts don't count as evidence if you commit a crimeWarrior-Your reached lvl 5. YayChef-+10 HP / +10 SP Regen to foods madeCraftsman-+50 Durability to all items made, you can make all basic crafts
[tr]
Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Experience:Chopstick Usage-MAX-You can eat with chopsticks like a real AsianStomp-27%+2 Damage to stomp attacks, 1 damage per levelOne Handed CombatG236%+10 Damage, 10% Bonus to one handed weapon related CraftsmanshipAlchemyG20%Creates potions, nice and spookyRepair-010%Untrained Skill: 10x Time taken, 4x SP cost, 5x EXP BonusSneak-225%You so sneaky!Taunt-150%You learn the art of anger management!Mining-30%There is riches in the ground!
InventoryIron Dagger of Piercing (Masterwork) - +15/+30, Piercing 10, 70/70
Boar Helmet - 20 Damage block, 50/50
Snake Gauntlets - 15 Damage block, 50/50
Leather Armor - 10 Damage block, 50/50
Leather Pants - 10 Damage block, 50/50
Leather Boots - 10 Damage block, 50/50
Leather Gloves - 10 Damage block, 50/50
Stone Sword - +5/+5
Stone Pickaxe
Bronze Knife - +7/+14 30/30
10 Simple Rabbits - +3 HP/SP Regen +10 Speed +5 Damage for 1 hr
5 Rabbit Meats - +10 HP/SP Regen for 1h
1 Leather Pouch of Potion of Speed - +20 Speed for 1 hr
19 Iron Pickaxes
10 Copper Ore
5 Grey Wolf Corpses
47 Raw Rabbits
50% full bag of Rosemary
25% full bag of Salt
25% full bag of pepper