Alex reappeared dozens of kilometers away from the mansion, standing above a teleportation platform. Thanks to [Return], he came back to Valeron, the beginner village. It was still nigh time and the streets were deserted. Only few guards could be seen patrolling here and there. As soon as he the teleportation skill finished, Alex started running towards the village gate. He crossed the streets, passing by stone houses covered by wooden roofs. There was nothing interesting in Valeron, the entirety of it was comprised of a dozen houses, some temples and three water wells.
Not paying attention to his surrounding, he ran past two guards and crossed the village gate. Recalling his plan for the following days, he turned left while running at full speed in the direction of the Veredin Forest. It was common knowledge that one couldn’t get a class in the beginner village. One must go to a capital city for that. Alex would have done that if he had enough money. Unfortunately, he had been too busy with the widow and hadn't have the time to get some coin. He only possessed ten copper coins right now which was enough for the teleportation fee. He could only farm monsters to earn money.
Even though the darkness was deep, the outskirts of the forest could still be seen at a distance. Towering trees dominated the landscape, the highest of them nearly a hundred meters high. As one of the oldest forest known in the Eastern Domain, the Veredin Forest was considered too dangerous to wander into. It had been left practically untouched for thousands of years as no sane person would dare to venture inside. Of course, there were fearless adventurers, attracted by treasures hidden within this strange forest. Many had entered the forest in the past but very few would return. The Veredin Forest housed ferocious monsters which were difficult to deal with, even for a high-level adventurer. There were even rumors stating that mysterious powers had taken residence in there, powers which were better left undisturbed.
Alex didn’t care about all of that though, he crossed the forest border with a nonchalant air. He was not planning to search for hidden treasures or something like that. He didn’t want to go too deep within the forest, where the most ferocious monsters lived. However, he didn’t want to farm low level monsters, it would take too long to earn something substantial. Having studied the map carefully before logging in yesterday, he knew where to go to find a worthy target.
His trip took him at the border of a pond where lotus flowers could be seen floating above the water. He immediately examined the flowers, trying to find a special one. It was somewhat difficult to see in the dark, but he sound found what he was looking for. It was a big red lotus flower located in the middle of the pond. Unlike the others which were small enough to fit in one hand, the red flower was two meters large. He smiled and walked back slowly, not wanting to alert the monster. Indeed, the lotus with the red flower was not a normal plant but a plant-type monster and not a normal plant-type monster. The Utriculis was a rank 5 elite monster related to carnivorous plants. Its flower was just a decoration, the most dangerous parts were its roots, lined on the bottom of the pond, ready to catch any prey stupid enough to approach too close.
Alex was particularly careful not to alert it. If he alerted it before he was ready, it would undoubtedly lead to a miserable death. If someone were to see him right now, he would be labelled as a madman. What sane person would attack an elite monster alone? Defeating a rank 5 elite monster should require 3 or 4 players at the same level as the monster. With his meagre level 13, Alex stood no chance against a level 15 Utriculis. But there was no trace of worry in Alex’s expression. Why would he worry? The information gathered about the monster combined with his understanding of the game made him invincible.
If a monster was not controlled by an advanced AI, which was the case with the Utriculis, he was confident in his ability to deal with it alone. Mindless monsters were like animals, their behaviours were too predictable. Moreover, all the information about its strengths and weaknesses were available on the game wiki. Killing it was feasible but required thorough preparations. Alex turn around and studied the surrounding trees. His eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the darkness and finally found a large tree in the shape of a bottle. He approached it slowly before climbing on it, till he reached a branch where something like a bird nest was hanging on. It was not a big bird nest though, but a chrysalis.
After taking his sword out of his inventory, Alex sliced the part of the chrysalis which linked it to the tree. He heard a muffled sound soon after, as if a heavy object had hit the ground. He didn’t jump down immediately to catch it as he needed several chrysalises. He continued to search for more and it didn’t take him long to gather ten chrysalises and that was enough. After jumping off the tree, he pulled a wood bottle and a sword out of his inventory.
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Beginner’ sword (Lv 1+) Attack:16-20 Attack speed:1,4
The perfect embodiment of a trash weapon. He thought of the sword with disdain. It was the weapon he had obtain at level 1 and it was completely worthless at his current level. Fortunately, it was not an issue right now as he didn’t intend to fight the Utriculis head on with a beginner sword. Gripping the weapon firmly, he slashed at one of the chrysalis which opened up like a banana fruit. He then crushed the insect inside with noe foot before gathering its juice inside the bottle. He did that for all the chrysalises which filled the bottle entirely. The preparation was not finished though. He began to cut tiny pieces of wood from a nearby tree and cut the edge of each of them. After the pieces of wood became darts, he dipped their points into the juice and headed back towards the pond.
Arrived at the pond border, Alex threw the bottle into the water, triggering an immediate reaction from the Utriculis. One of its roots pierced the water surface, gobbled the bottle in the blink of an eye and shrunk down underwater. Even though carnivorous plants were dangerous, they lacked intelligence. They were even more stupid than animal. The Utriculis didn’t notice it had eaten a bottle filled with poison. Alex waited for the poison to take effect as the wood bottle had to be digested first. One hour passed before the wood bottle was finally digested and began to pour its deadly poison inside the monster.
The water exploded suddenly when long tentacles came out from its depth. Each tentacle was like a thick liana covered with thorns and whose edges ended with a bulb. Closer inspection would show that a bulb was in fact a jaw filled with teeth as fine as needles. In other circumstances, Alex would avoid going anywhere near this monster the moment it came out of the water, but he considered this one as already dead. The poison was already taking chunks of its health which was decreasing slowly. With its “poisoned” state, the Utriculis lost the control of its movement. All it could do was to squirm in all directions.
Alex took advantage of the situation to shoot a dart towards the tentacle. It had no trouble piercing the monster’ skin, injecting poison in its vascular system. Adding more poison was not useful at this state as the monster had already eaten a whole bottle of it. Rather, Alex wanted to trigger something.
Warning! You have entered combat mode.
Sure enough, Alex and the monster entered combat mode. He nodded inwardly, thinking that everything was going smoothly according to his wish. Even though Realm of the Gods was a game, many features of the real world had been implemented to increase the realism. The developers had consulted the best experts in ecology to help them design various ecosystems for the living animals and plants, including the monsters. The Silver Winged Butterfly for example had developed a defence against the Utriculis. It possessed numerous glands which secreted a powerful poison, extremely toxic for the monster.
Alex had harvested a good amount of poison from Silved Winged Butterfly chrysalises. There was no way the Utriculis would survive such huge amount of poison. However, even if the monster died because of the poison, the system would not consider Alex as the one who had killed it. Indeed, throwing a bottle filled with poison couldn’t trigger the combat mode as it was not a direct attack. That was the reason why Alex threw a dart at the monster. Once in combat mode, the system would calculate what contribution he would made to the monster’s death.
The calculation was complicated, involving many variables such as the amount of damage dealt by each player or the type of debuffs each player had casted on the monster etc. The players had been trying to determine how the calculation worked. Even though they had succeeded to a certain extent, they were still many things unclear. Of course, Alex was not some random player. He knew perfectly how the calculation worked and he also knew that the calculation algorithm had a bug.
Normally, one couldn’t use the environment to kill a monster and claim the reward afterward. If a fire-type monster fell into the water for example, the damage it received from the water was not considered as caused by the players. But the was a bug in the calculation algorithm. If a player attacked alone an elite monster or a monster of higher grade, the system counted all the damage done as if it was caused by the player, even if the damages were caused by the environment. The developers had discovered this bug long ago but chose to do nothing as no player had discovered it yet. After all, who would be lucky enough to challenge an elite monster alone and win? The probability of discovering the bug was too low and the cost of patching it was too high. No one wanted to shut down all the servers for a patch, it would cost too much money.
This was good news for Alex. He didn’t need to attack the Utriculis personally and left the poison do all the job. Standing at the edge of the monster’s aggro range, he was careful to avoid being hit by the crazed tentacles while shooting dart from time to time to maintain the combat mode. Under “poisoned” state, the monster could only wait of its death. Soon, it dropped lifelessly into the pond, dead.