Chapter 2: Fired Just for Watching a Promo Video?
1226 Words
Hunting red-eyed rabbits may be easy, but the experience points they give are pitifully low. Plus, they hardly drop anything useful other than the quest item, the Red Eye, and even copper coins are rare.
However, Lin Tianhao was still happily hunting them down. After all, his main goal was to stack up his health points.
Once his health points increased, his attack damage would naturally rise too.
Besides, Lin Tianhao knew about a hidden reward in the newbie village. If he handed in 10,000 Red Eyes instead of the required 100, he would unlock a special skill. This skill could increase the range of his basic attacks, and when fully leveled, it could extend the range by 50%.
For mages and priests, this might not be particularly useful, but for an archer like Lin Tianhao, it was a game-changer.
If he could stack up his stats and get this skill that increased his attack range, his next plan would be ready to implement.
Ding, you killed a red-eyed rabbit, +1 experience.
Ding, you killed a red-eyed rabbit, +1 experience.
…
Every three seconds, he could stack two health points. That meant 40 health points per minute. Factoring in movement and downtime between killing monsters, Lin Tianhao could average about 30 health points per minute.
At first, it took Lin Tianhao 12 arrows to kill one red-eyed rabbit. Then it dropped to 10 arrows, then 8, and finally 5.
When he reached the point where he only needed 5 arrows, the system notification rang out.
Ding, your talent, Hand of Divine Punishment, has been upgraded to 2 stars.
Hand of Divine Punishment (God-tier): 2 stars.
Effect 1: Each basic attack deals 2% of your health points as true damage.
Effect 2: Each basic attack permanently increases your health by 2 points.
Proficiency: 0/100,000.
With the talent upgrade, Lin Tianhao now only needed 3 arrows to kill a red-eyed rabbit.
Luckily, eight hours had already passed since the game launched, and no other players were around the red-eyed rabbits anymore. Otherwise, Lin Tianhao might have attracted a crowd.
During this time, Lin Tianhao leveled up to level 2 and gained five free attribute points.
He allocated all of his points to attack speed, raising it from 0.63 to 0.73.
Although there was some improvement, it was still just a drop in the bucket.
"Gear and free attribute points—these are what I lack right now," Lin Tianhao thought to himself as he shot an arrow at another red-eyed rabbit in the distance.
-30.
With his increased health and talent upgrades, Lin Tianhao’s basic attacks were now quite powerful.
Three arrows were enough to kill a red-eyed rabbit. While this improved his efficiency, it also meant he had to frequently hunt new rabbits, slowing down his progress.
Originally, he could make 30 basic attacks per minute, but now it was reduced to 20. Fortunately, with his talent upgrade, each attack now granted him 2 health points, so he was still gaining 40 health points per minute, more than before.
But now Lin Tianhao faced a new problem: at level 2, killing level 1 monsters no longer gave him experience.
In Twilight of the Gods, except for dungeons, bosses, and a few special monsters, killing monsters below your level gave no experience points.
Without hesitation, Lin Tianhao decided to keep farming the red-eyed rabbits, solely for the special skill that would increase his attack range.
Two hours passed in the blink of an eye.
Lin Tianhao was still level 2, but his health points had skyrocketed from 100 to 4,800.
This was a staggering increase.
At this stage, even those pure-health warriors who focused solely on vitality at level 5 would only have around 500 health points.
In Twilight of the Gods, different classes had varying attribute boosts from their free points.
For example, for an archer, one point of attack speed increased their attack speed by 0.02, while for other classes, it was only 0.01.
Warriors got 20 health points per free attribute point, while other classes only got 10.
Specifically, warriors focused on health, armor, and magic resistance, which all had double the effect.
Archers focused on attack, attack speed, and crit rate.
Assassins focused on attack, movement speed, and crit rate.
Mages focused on spell power, mana, and movement speed.
Priests focused on spell power, mana, and movement speed, just like mages.
Thus, different classes had different ways of allocating their free attribute points.
However, just relying on the free points from leveling up was far from enough; you also needed equipment to fully boost your stats.
Lin Tianhao glanced at his inventory. He had collected around 1,600 Red Eyes so far—still far from the 10,000 he needed.
But Lin Tianhao wasn’t worried. Now that he could kill a rabbit with a single arrow, collecting Red Eyes would soon be much easier.
At that moment, Lin Tianhao received a notification from his external device.
He looked at the game time—he had been playing for over ten hours. It was probably time to log off for dinner.
Exiting his gaming pod, Zhou Xiaopang excitedly said, "Bro, this game is so realistic! It's like living in a second world."
As they chatted, the two of them walked towards the dining hall.
The Dream Chasers Club.
It was one of the three major gaming clubs in Binhai City. Lin Tianhao and Zhou Xiaopang were both just gold farmers for the club, the lowest tier.
But for Zhou Xiaopang, having free meals, accommodation, and being paid to play games was an amazing deal.
There were about a dozen other gold farmers eating in the dining hall.
After everyone had arrived, a pot-bellied middle-aged man walked in, followed by a long-legged secretary in black stockings.
It was Li Haitao, the general manager of the Dream Chasers Club!
He was also known as "Li the Big Mouth" because he had no gaming talent and talked way too much.
"Today marks the launch of Twilight of the Gods. You've all been in the game for ten hours now. Let's go down the line and report your levels and earnings."
"Level 4, 45 copper coins."
"Level 4, 53 copper coins."
"Level 4, 32 copper coins."
…
One by one, the players reported their results. Almost everyone was at level 4.
Finally, it was Zhou Xiaopang’s turn, and he smugly announced, "Level 5, two silver coins."
Li Haitao, who had been indifferent, suddenly looked up in surprise. He nodded and said, "Not bad."
Lin Tianhao kept his head down, eating. Zhou Xiaopang nudged him, "Bro, it’s your turn."
"Level 2, 15 copper coins."
The drop rate for level 1 red-eyed rabbits was truly dismal. Lin Tianhao had killed over a thousand of them and only managed to get that many copper coins.
Hearing this, Li Haitao slammed the table.
"Lin Tianhao, what’s going on? Everyone else is level 4, and you’re only level 2?"
"I got delayed watching a promo video," Lin Tianhao explained honestly.
"A promo video?"
"Do you know how valuable time is in the early stages of the game? And you wasted it on a promo video?"
Li Haitao angrily berated him.
"Lin Tianhao, this club doesn’t support freeloaders. We don’t need idle gamers like you. Pack your things and get out of here!"
- Writer
