Chapter 11 – You Know Your Place
System prompt: You have completed the quest “Rascally Rabbits”!
System prompt: You have gained 10 bronze coins and 500 experience points!
After returning to Ayr Town and turning in his quest, Chen Mo shook his head in disappointment at the reward.
The reward wasn’t terrible – it was equivalent to getting an extra 25 EXP for every Wild White Rabbit killed – but there were just too many players competing for the same monster. It wasn’t worth doing the quest at all and killing non-quest monsters would be much faster.
Chen Mo logged off and checked the forums. Some people had started posting the spawn locations of different monsters.
“Wild Wolf Valley, Level 7 Wild Wolves. Hmm. That’s it.”
Chen Mo quickly chose his next target.
Level 7 Wild Wolves had high attack and wasn’t slow either. It would be difficult for a level 5 player to take it on. He had not much in the way of equipment and would die if he were attacked twice.
Chen Mo examined the data he had on the Wild Wolf and found that if he made use of the surrounding terrain and trees, he could fight one-on-one with it. He had to be very careful.
He logged in to the game again and passed a huge army of players. From the Man-Eating Flower region onwards, there was a sharp decline in player numbers.
Only small parties of players were able to take on monsters in the Level 6 monster area, though these small groups were mostly temporary.
China has many game guilds and gamer groups but Ayr Town’s numbers were even more staggering. One has a very slim chance of randomly meeting another from the same guild in the same Ayr Town.
The Level 6 Man-Eating Flower has low attack and almost never moves. It is the first choice for long-range attack players but to a hunter like Chen Mo, it was not a good monster for levelling up.
He could throw his trap-grenades but that would also put him within range of the Man-Eating Flower. Its attack came from the ground, so terrain and obstacles won’t work. Alone, Chen Mo cannot withstand more than a few attacks from it.
Moving on past the Man-Eating Flower area, he came to the entrance of the Wild Wolf Valley.
At this stage in the game, most of the players were still around Level 5. Wild Wolves have high attack and will kill a Level 5 player in 2 or 3 attacks. Regular people will not come to Wild Wolf Valley to grind monsters so Chen Mo did not find it odd that he saw nobody in Wild Wolf Valley but a large number of Wild Wolves.
Compared to Wild Wolves, the Man-Eating Flowers were undoubtedly the better choice.
Chen Mo’s gaze swept over Wild Wolf Valley and his eyes lit up.
There was a large boulder not far from the entrance to the valley. He could kill Wild Wolves leisurely like he had with the Black Goblins!
He moved cautiously to the boulder and lured 2 Wild Wolves, then climbed up the boulder and started attacking the Wild Wolves leisurely.
What luck that such a great kill-spot had not yet been discovered! Looks like the players in the game were still being restrained by the rules of traditional games and not many knew that they could kill monsters like this. Otherwise, he would not have gotten the spot at all.
However, Chen Mo was not so kind as to post this information on the forums and let other players know. While browsing the forums earlier, he had found that quite a few players, like him, had appeared in Goblin Valley instead of the beginner town. These players were trapped in the valley and could not escape so they posted on the forum asking for help. Unfortunately, nobody was able to present them with a feasible solution.
Chen Mo was sure that he was not the only one who had managed to escape from the valley. Those who managed to get out on their own must be capable people and no one would be willing to disclose his or her methods and help rivals.
The Level 7 Wild Wolf has low HP – just 800HP. However, its defense is much higher than the Black Goblins’ Chen Mo killed. He speculated that the Black Goblins had no defence but the Wild Wolves should have some defence. After equipping the Goblin Boots, which added 1 to Strength, Chen Mo’s attack was 8 more than when he was fighting against the Black Goblins. However, the damage he dealt was 10 points lower than when he was hitting the Black Goblins. Every trap he threw down only did over 40 damage to the Wild Wolves.
Chen Mo did not have to be stingy with crossbow bolts after being able to return to the beginner village. When his skills were on cooldown, he used his crossbow to attack. Ordinary crossbow attacks only did 20+ damage to the Wild Wolves but the accumulated damage was not lower than his skill attacks.
In over a minute, the 2 Wild Wolves fell to the ground, dead.
System prompt: You have killed Wild Wolf! You have gained 100 EXP!
“The EXP is not bad. If I keep going like this I can get to Level 5 in 20mins.”
Chen Mo was very satisfied with the EXP from Wild Wolves. When he was doing the rabbit-killing quest earlier, walking and killing had taken him up to 7mins. In the end, he had gotten just over 1000 EXP for his efforts but it was due to rich-boy Green Mountain– if not, he would have had to spend much more time KS-ing others.
After killing the 2 wolves, Chen Mo jumped down the boulder and lured more. He deliberately hit them for a while before hopping onto the boulder to avoid having the Wild Wolves’ aggro changing.
Wild Wolves died one after another as Chen Mo’s experience increased rapidly. Soon, his EXP bar was at 70% – 6 or 7 mins more and he’ll be Level 5.
But at that moment, 3 figures appeared in the valley entrance.
Mark of a Bright Moon was the guild leader of a small guild called Bright Moon Guild. He was the leader but his guild only had a pitiful number of 60 to 70 active players.
Mark of a Bright Moon wanted to strengthen and grow his guild and become famous. However, to be famous, he had to be very skilled in a well-known, populous game. To become the crème de la crème, though, he had to throw money into it. Of course, Mark of a Bright Moon had no such copious amounts of money to sink in a game so he had messed around for years and gotten nowhere.
The appearance of GENESIS had been like a great ray of hope for him.
In the past, even if a guild was well-known in a game, once you were out of the game the guild was seldom heard of by others.Mark of a Bright Moon had been unwilling to throw money into the game because of this.
GENESIS is different. From what he knew, virtually every guild from all corners of China had entered GENESIS. Countless players from various games in China have also become enthralled by this game.
If one can make a mark in GENESIS, he will become an overnight celebrity!
With fame, it will be easy to make money and make Bright Moon Guild bigger and better.
Mark of a Bright Moon had entered GENESIS with much excitement. He had been surprised to discover that other than himself, two members of the guild had also started in the small town of Ayr.
He was a warrior and the other two were a mage and an archer. With 3 of them working together, they were able to kill monsters of higher levels than themselves.
With their help, competing for the highest level in the game was not an impossibility. If he got to Level 10 first and gets a System Reward or Announcement, it would be easy to get famous.
Their levelling up speed was quite good when killing the Man-Eating Flowers but Mark of a Bright Moon was determined to climb the Level ladder and felt that it would be 20mins at most that others would flood in if they continued killing at the Man-Eating Flowers area. He would have to find another spot to grind in then. Hence, the Wild Wolf Valley, which was a level higher, was his best bet.
Unexpectedly, when they first got to the valley entrance, they saw a lone hunter on a boulder easily killing 2 wolves below him.
The 2 Wild Wolves dropped dead and the hunter on the boulder had shed not a drop of blood!
Simple yet quick!
Killing monsters could actually be that easy!
“Boss Bright Moon, let’s snatch that boulder for ourselves. The wolves are Level 7 – we can stay here till we reach Level 9!” The mage in the group could not help but suggest.
“But players Level 10 and below cannot PK. How can we chase that hunter away?” the archer hesitated.
“Simple! We kill-steal everything and he’ll leave on his own!” Mark of a Bright Moon sneered.
It was like the Heavens were aiding him. Bright Moon Guild would prosper! With this level-grinding spot, he will be sure to get ahead in the level ranks!
Mark of a Bright Moon was an old hand at KS-ing. The 3 of them quickly cleared a path to the boulder. The boulder could accommodate one more person so the mage climbed up. The archer and Mark of a Bright Moon then lured the monsters away from the boulder. Just like that, Chen Mo, a hunter with no means of long-range attack, was entirely unable to kill any monsters. Once he jumps down the boulder, the archer would climb up and occupy his spot.
“Have it.” Chen Mo did not want to waste any time on them and jumped off the boulder himself, then went to a corner not far off to slowly kill some wolves.
“Haha! Good boy! You know your place, eh?” Mark of a Bright Moon laughed. He did not expect the hunter to be so amiable. He’d expected the hunter to hang on and try to make trouble for him.
Chen Mo just rolled his eyes when he heard him and ignored him.
Damn you! You really think that you can snatch my spot so easily? I’ll teach you a lesson real soon!