After breakfast, Lu Yanyan, Lu You's mother, went to the commercial market to stock up on goods. With nothing particular to do, Lu You turned on the TV. He flipped through several channels, most of which were entertainment and music programs, presenting a scene of peace and prosperity. However, he didn't recognize any of the stars, and nothing seemed particularly interesting.
Just as he was about to turn off the TV and go online, an advertisement suddenly appeared. A group of handsome young men and beautiful women, all around seventeen or eighteen years old, clad in armor and wielding various long spears and giant swords, declared powerfully: "Sanctuary Online, with a global registration of over one billion! This summer, we invite you to battle! Blah blah blah..."
A flash of white light, and an incredibly exciting battle scene featuring various professions unfolded, stirring up excitement.
Lu You watched intently, so engrossed that he didn't even notice when the remote control fell to the floor.
Sanctuary Online!
He had played it!
In fact, he had spent a whole decade playing Sanctuary in his spare time. He would have continued if the operators hadn't, against their better judgement, switched the game from a 'monthly card' model to a 'free-to-play store', severely affecting the gameplay.
But!
A parallel world also has Sanctuary?
The skills and professions displayed seemed exactly the same as his previous life!
Wasn't this too exaggerated?
Lu You hurriedly took a photo of the official website address at the bottom of the screen with his phone and rushed back to his bedroom.
Upon opening the Sanctuary official website, Lu You's eyes lit up with joy. He was almost overwhelmed by this pie from the sky - it was indeed the Sanctuary he knew so well!
The professions, town locations, monsters, skills... they were all the same!
Well... not exactly the same. There were some differences. First, the game servers. In his former life, Sanctuary always opened a new server every month to attract new players. Here, there was only one "Huaxia Server," claiming to accommodate players from the entire universe. Secondly, the price of the monthly card. In the past, it was 100 RMB, but here it was 300 Huaxia currency. Of course, the first 10 days were free for new players.
"God, I've played Sanctuary for ten years. If I apply that knowledge in the game as a professional player..."
Lu You didn't dare to continue the thought. His server in the past wasn't very popular, with only about a hundred thousand players, but even as a semi-professional, he was able to earn some pocket money by running dungeons and farming equipment. The Huaxia server... supposedly had over 1 billion registered players. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but there should be tens of millions, right? Wouldn't that mean earning money hand over fist?
Checking the time, he noticed that the game had only started its open beta yesterday afternoon, less than 24 hours ago!
He hurriedly downloaded the client.
The internet speed in this world was astonishing, reaching 50MB per second.
In less than an hour, Sanctuary was downloaded!
He opened the familiar client and logged into the game.
"Create character profession - Hunter!"
In his former life, Lu You played as a Hunter, reaching level 355. Although he couldn't compare with professional players who were easily above level 500, for a working professional with limited gaming time, this level was quite respectable.
"Enter character name - GodHunter!"
"System prompt: Sorry, ID already taken, please enter a new name…"
"GodHunter123!"
"System prompt: Sorry…"
"Godhunter19860704!" — That was the birth date in Lu You's world.
"System prompt: Sorry..."
"Naming is really super hard ahhhh!" Lu You was on the verge of a breakdown and accidentally typed out his inner thoughts.
"System prompt: Character creation successful."
Lu You: "......"
Well, the name is just a symbol, no big deal.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
After a brief loading screen, Lu You found himself in the all-too-familiar newbie village, surrounded by many other new players, each armed with iron swords and staffs, rushing out of the village.
Expertly equipping the hunting bow given by the system, Lu You followed the crowd out of the village.
The server had been open for less than 24 hours, and the popularity of the newbie area was evident. Everywhere he looked, there was a sea of players, so dense that nothing else was visible. The level 1 sheep and spotted deer that were meant for players to level up were often cut into pieces the moment they spawned, leading to incessant arguments over monster-stealing. Fortunately, PvP was disabled below level 10, otherwise, the newbie area would have been littered with corpses.
As a veteran player with ten years of gaming experience, Lu You naturally wouldn't foolishly compete with new players for monsters. He knew exactly how to level up efficiently.
"Head to the Goblin Forest!"
Lu You sprinted along the edge of the newbie village, reaching the Dark Swamp in fifteen minutes.
In the past, when Lu You trained his alternate characters, the newbie area was almost deserted, filled with monsters, requiring high skill in positioning. Now, the crowd of players actually made it easier for Lu You.
Dark Swamp, monsters: Swamp Creature, Dark Maggot, suitable for level 5 to 10 players.
When Lu You arrived at the Dark Swamp, there were already hundreds of level 7 and 8 players teaming up for leveling. Seeing Lu You, a level 1 Hunter, they laughed smugly, basking in their sense of superiority.
Indeed, they felt superior, as level 8 was currently the highest level on the server (or so they thought).
"Little bro, this place isn't for you, better go back."
"A level 1 here? You'll be sent back to the city with just one touch from the monsters."
Lu You ignored these boring people and quietly jogged past them.
"Idiot, there are hidden monsters there... looking for death! Let's prepare to hear his screams," said a male mage, eliminating a freshly spawned Dark Maggot with a fireball, smiling to his companions.
No sooner had he finished speaking than five elite maggots, hidden in the rotting tree piles, coiled up and charged at Lu You!
Lu You smiled faintly, his mouse sweeping across the screen while his left hand rapidly pressed two keys on the keyboard. Immediately, a scream was heard, and Lu You fell to the ground.
"Ha ha! Gone black and white, right?"
In the Holy Realm game, the screen turns black and white upon a character's death, leading players to say 'gone black and white' to indicate death.
The leveling players nearby laughed uproariously, but the five elite maggots near Lu You's 'corpse' suddenly froze. If they had thoughts, they would have been puzzled, wondering how they hadn't even touched this human, and yet he fell? Could it be that we are evolving towards Boss status, killing him with just our aura? Damn it, forget it, let's go kill others, and they rolled towards the leveling group...
"Little buddy, we told you it's not for you. Sigh, you wouldn't listen and even lured five elite maggots here, so annoying." The mage threw another fireball at an elite maggot's face, saying, "If we don't kill these five elite maggots, we can't level up. They will attack the closest person to them, so let's take one each in our group."
"Okay." The other teams had no objections and began to attack the elite maggots.
As the teams fought fiercely with the maggots, a warrior was stunned to discover that 'Naming is really super hard ahhhh!' had gotten up from the ground, dusted off his pants, and disappeared into the distance without looking back...
"What the hell? Wasn't he dead?"
"Could it be a BUG?"
"No way, Holy Realm doesn't have BUGs!"
The crowd was utterly baffled.
...
Lu You had used a feint. Not even a level 10 fully-equipped warrior could withstand the attack of five elite maggots, let alone his level 1 alt character.
The "Golden Cicada Shedding" trick is a well-known little trick in the holy realm from the past life. If a player's level is two below that of the elite dark larvae, they can feign death in front of them and remain undetected. Players can use this trick to smoothly lure all nearby elite larvae and then enter the Goblin Forest.
This harmless little trick originated from a joke. Lu You couldn't remember which great player discovered it, but he recalled a post on the forum. Once, a couple went to train their low-level characters in the Dark Swamp and accidentally attracted the elite dark larvae. The low-level characters naturally couldn't defeat the larvae. During the escape, the male player had a stroke of genius and pressed the feign death and scream buttons simultaneously. Surprisingly, he successfully evaded the danger. Later, he posted about this on the forum, and it became a must-learn skill for new players in the region.
Since this 'skill' only works on elite dark larvae, the holy realm officials did not make any changes to it after becoming aware.
Back to the main point, why choose to enter the Goblin Forest? The reason is simple: the monsters in the Goblin Forest are also between levels 5 and 10. The difficulty is a bit higher than the Dark Swamp, but every five minutes, a 10-level monster called 'Clumsy Goblin' spawns. Its attack power is extremely high, capable of one-shotting a level 5 fully-equipped warrior, but it moves very slowly. Most importantly, it uses a passive skill called 'Boiling Blood' that causes continuous bleeding and increases attack power. Ranged classes like mages and hunters can easily defeat it without any damage, even a level 1 character...
Lu You was quite lucky. After just two rounds, he found the green-skinned Clumsy Goblin. He shot an arrow, causing a '—1' damage figure to appear above the goblin's head. It roared, its body radiating red light, and slowly approached Lu You with its large mace...
Boom!
Fifteen minutes later, the Clumsy Goblin died foolishly, granting Lu You a total of 800 experience points. It not only allowed him to level up from 1 to 3 directly but also generously dropped a rare one-handed staff—
Burning Stick: Magic Attack Power 12~19, +1 Fire Damage.
In the holy realm, equipment is categorized into white (common), green (rare), blue (uncommon), purple (precious), gold (invaluable), red (legendary), multicolored (epic), and the 'Dark Gold Set,' which grants special ability bonuses when fully equipped.
"Too bad it's not a bow."
Lu You smiled and opened his character panel, allocating all 10 freely distributable points to 'Magic Power.' (Players get 5 freely distributable points per level.)
If someone were beside Lu You at this moment, they would certainly scold him for being foolish. A hunter should either add 5 points to strength for a pure attack build or 5 points to agility for a critical hit build. Those who dislike extremes could go for a traditional build like 3 strength and 2 agility, 2 strength and 3 agility, or 2 strength, 2 agility, and 1 stamina. Adding 5 points to magic power—what's he thinking? Compete with mages in magic attack?