As Leiu headed deeper and deeper into the forest, the number of players lessened until there were only a dozen. It took him around twenty minutes to find a somewhat secluded spot to kill some monsters and finish his quests.
On his way there, it was fortunate that he managed to finish the gathering quest. There were numerous 'Sun Snowberries', so it was kind of easy to complete the quest. No fighting was required.
The spot he found was calm, there were enough monsters for him to get a feel of Virtual fighting. He didn't fight any monster on his way here, or rather, he couldn't as there were just too many people. Either parties or solo players.
It was finally time, he unsheathed the sword from his belt. It was a poor-looking sword, made of bronze and quite rusty. If one looked at it, they would doubt it was capable of cutting paper.
A white rabbit with a horn sticking out of its forehead was nearby. A bit bigger than a normal rabbit, it had red eyes and thick white fur. It was silently eating snowberries, not minding Leiu being so close.
Each monster had an aggro range, but if the player was well hidden or in stealth, the aggro range could be greatly reduced.
Above the monster floated a red bar which obviously was its Hp (Health Points), and above that was its name.
Since it was an area meant for beginners, the Lv1 rabbits do not attack unless they were attacked first. As for the others, they retaliate once they feel threatened or a player attacked them.
Seeing that it was not hostile toward him, Leiu went behind it and attacked. He slashed vertically with his bronze sword. It was not a flawless slash, rather, it looked very clumsy.
Red blood poured from the fresh wound, and its health decreased by a third. However, Leiu was not surprised by the blood, he mercilessly slashed again with the thought of killing it as fast as possible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy as ‘clicking a button’.
The white rabbit emitted a loud screech then leapt at Leiu. Like that, it impaled his abdomen with its horn, he could feel slight tinge of pain, or better call it discomfort, but it was not debilitating. The attack caused him to be momentarily surprised, the ‘pain’ wasn't intense but it was enough to distract him for a few more seconds, which was more than enough for the rabbit to attack him again.
Fortunately, he somehow snapped out of his daze and swiftly managed to sidestep to the right, barely dodging the sharp horn.
As he evaded, Leiu thrust his sword again, but this time, he focused on the rabbit's head and used all the strength he could muster.
The sword tip penetrated the rabbit's skull, and its annoying screeching ended as it fell on the ground, soundless, blood oozing out of its skull and earlier wound.
Unlike in normal games, it didn't disappear on the spot, it just stayed there on the ground. Leiu was still processing what just happened, he was just a young man who never experienced real fighting before. Although it was brief, it was undeniably thrilling. He still felt a bit of discomfort in his abdomen, probably due to his health being still low, but other than that, he was fine.
To check, he opened his Status Window and saw that his Health and Stamina, unsurprisingly, got lower.
His health had decreased by 3 and his stamina by 2. So, basically, 3 hits like the previous ones, and he would die. Leiu breathed heavily for a dozen seconds, and after some time he managed to calm down and think about what happened earlier.
He needed to learn a fighting style because randomly thrusting and hacking wasn’t going to cut it. True, he killed that rabbit but he got hurt in return and he absolutely couldn't afford to get hit several times. He should really learn how to properly dodge.
The experts who played some of the old VRMMOs wouldn't find it difficult to get rid of such weak rabbits. Only when the hard content started appearing will the good players be distinguished from the rest of the masses.
As a person who never played a VRMMO and wasn't some kind of fighter in the outside world, Leiu had to quickly learn an efficient playstyle to not get left behind.
Also, the thrust to the rabbit's skull probably dealt some critical damage, or else it would not have died–considering that the first slash only removed 30% of its health.
Leiu breathed some fresh air, then walked to the rabbit's corpse and inspected it. The quest required him to get its fur, but how was he going to get it?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He was foreign to the concept of loot in this game.
'Do I have to skin it?'
As he was going to try to skin the rabbit, a message popped up in front of him.
Would you like to loot 'Savage Rabbit'
'Yes'
Rabbit fur obtained!
2 Copper obtained!
Leiu really felt happy because he didn't have to skin it. When he checked his inventory, he saw the white fur icon in it.
'3 more rabbits and I'll level up.'
The experience given was really generous, he had initially thought that it would be hard to even gain 1 level, but, fortunately, it was going to be easy.
So, if he could relentlessly kill rabbits for an hour, he should level up a few times right?
With that, Leiu proceeded to kill Savage Rabbits. He spotted Bees too, but he focused only on rabbits. He wanted to get used to this type of fighting, to hone his skills and get better at it.
Level Up! All stats +1
The stats raise was not that great for him, which made him grumble, nevertheless, it was better than nothing, at least. Leiu didn't stop at that point, he continued killing rabbits, and by the time he killed his 27th one, he was able to deal with rabbits without being hit. Based on their movements, he was able to somewhat predict when they were going to leap at him.
His level was raised to 4. It was not that much as he expected to be more than that, but the experience given lessened a lot. Furthermore, the rabbits were only Level 1. Plus, who would go around killing rabbints non-stop. It was, by no means, an efficient way of leveling up.
It had already been 2 hours since he started fighting rabbits. One fight took at most a minute, so killing 27 rabbits shouldn’t have taken more than an hour. However, one needed to take into account the stamina and health regen. They regenerated slowly, therefore, he had to rest between every fight.
Maybe he had an enormous talent or it was just easy, but by the time he fought his 48th rabbit, he could practically one-shot them. With a single slash beheading them or a precise thrust into their skulls.
Not all rabbits dropped rabbit furs but everyone dropped 2 coppers, so he now had 102 copper–96 from the rabbits and 6 left from his previous beginner money.
He reached Level 5 and his status increased by a little bit.
Level: 5 CLASS: None TITLE(S): NONE -- STATS -- STRENGTH : 14 HEALTH: 15 INTELLIGENCE: 14 MANA: 17 WISDOM: 11 STAMINA: 13/18 AGILITY: 13 -- DEXTERITY: 12 -- VITALITY: 13 --
As he felt a sense of achievement looking at his stats, a sudden message popped up. It startled him a bit, but reading its content made him feel even more delighted.
Sword Mastery [Basic Lv1] Unlocked : +5% damage when wielding a sword
'I guess all those fights were worthwhile.'
Praising himself, Leiu stood up and decided that it was finally time to try fighting the bees. Their Levels were between 2 and 5, unlike the rabbits which were only lvl 1.
He fought many rabbits, so he didn't really notice that he went a bit deeper into the forest. Gazing around him, he noticed that there was no one around, not even a sound of fighting. Leiu personally liked these kinds of places, it was perfect when no one bothered him.
Deciding to change his target from rabbits to Bees, he began searching for them. They weren’t particularly that hard to find. After all, he saw countless bees since he began killing rabbits, but he had ignored them.
This forest, meant for beginners, was quite big. Leiu must have at least walked 5 miles away from the beginner's village, yet it was still filled with low leveled monsters. monsters.
...
Less than five minutes since he started searching for Bees while curiously looking around, Leiu stumbled upon an unexpected sight.
A distance away stood a creature as big as he was with the length of a dog or maybe a bit more, and with a 50 cm long horn sticking out of its head. It was actually a giant rabbit with two big red eyes staring right at him.
Leiu only was surprised for a second before he regained his senses and jumped back. Unlike normal rabbits, this one leaped on him the moment it saw him.
Above the rabbit was its name, displayed in all its glory to a still shocked Leiu.
Superior Savage Rabit: LVL 5