Level Is Everything

First Battle

"[Inventory], [Equipment]!"

Ryou opened the inventory and equipment window. As any other game, Aaru is giving new players some basic necessities. A new player like Ryou got 10 x red potion and 5 x blue potion as consumable. Each of the red potion can heal 50 health points (HP) on use and have a cooldown (CD) of 20 seconds. A blue potion can heal 50 mana points (MP) and it was a crucial point for casting spell for any class. Any item from the inventory can be taken out without the need to open the inventory window just by making a command inside the mind. It makes it easier to use potion in the middle of the battle without having the need of the inventory window to block the view.

As an archer class, Ryou is given a wooden bow, 100 x wooden arrow, and cotton shirt which provides 1 point of defense. The wooden bow itself have a basic damage of 10 and the wooden arrow have a basic damage of 5. The wooden arrow seemed to be powerful enough to add almost half of the damage of the bow but it needs to be remembered that arrows are consumable that can't be recovered in the middle of a battle. After equipping the bow, arrow and cotton shirt, he opened his character status window.

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Name: Ryou      Unique ID: 1093029102

Level: 1              Race: Human

HP: 50/50          MP: 30/30

STR: 11              Atk: 10 + 15      Def: 1 + 1

AGI: 1                Matk: 1              Mdef: 1

VIT: 1                  Cast: 1                Aspd: 1

INT: 1                  Crit: 1                Act: 1               

DEX: 1                Stat point: 0

LUK: 1               

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(STR= strength, AGI = agility, VIT = vitality, INT = intelligence, DEX = dexterity, LUK = luck, Atk = attack, Def = defense, Matk = magic attack, Mdef = magic defense, Cast = casting speed, Aspd = attack speed, Crit = critical rate, Act = action speed rate, and Stat point = free status point)

「I guess no matter how many times I look at it, I am weak. Let's get stronger by level up then. 」

Following the map, Ryou arrived at the field after coming out of the village. He was shocked to see the amount of players outside which basically outnumbering the monsters. Inside the village it wasn't that crowded since most player already finished taking up quest and now on their way to complete it by killing some monsters at the field. Because of that, Ryou was overwhelmed by the number of player. A beginner's village can hold up to 10,000 players at the same time. Due to the number of players, there are around 100,000 beginner's village out there. As the game only using one server for all of them, it was logical that the size of the world of Aaru was made to be much larger than the real world. There's also no problem when interacting with players from a different country since the game incorporated the latest language translation function.

To see a small 'horned rabbit' ganged up by 20-30 players, it will take hours for a player to level up due to the experience distribution. A player might be leveled up to level 2 by killing 40 horned rabbit but due to the number of players ganging up upon a single horned rabbit, it will take 800-1200 rabbit. Even if there is a lot of horned rabbit, the amount of players is far more than that.

Ryou then decided to move further away into the fields. After walking for some time, the number of player within sight has been diminished and finally a monster that is untargeted by other players is found.

Clearly the further it was from the village, the stronger the monster. It was some basic knowledge in any game but for Ryou it seemed like all monster are the same. As long as it is a monster then all he has to do is to kill it.

Ryou takes out his bow and aimed at the monster. It was one of the advantage of ranged attack, you can do a preemptive attack if the monster hasn't noticed you. The target of Ryou's aim is a level 7 'wind wolf'. It was stronger than horned rabbit but its agility was the real problem. That is also the reason why Ryou found almost no other player in the vicinity. To take down a level 7 wind wolf, at least you need 5-10 level 6 player or else you will be wasting your time either to limit its movement and hit it or wasting your potion to keep up with the wind wolf damage output which makes player decide that it wasn't worth it to hunt wind wolf and change to other monster to hunt.

Ryou however was oblivious to all of that and aimed his bow.

「Alright, I think I can do it since there's no big difference from the bow that I use every day. 」

*Swish*

The arrow flew beautifully towards the middle of the wind wolf eyebrows.

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When the arrow hit the target, the wind wolf immediately alerted and turned aggressive towards him. There is also a health bar showing up on top of the wind wolf. The damage caused by Ryou seemed to ignored the monster defense because it actually landed at its weak point and not to mention the wind wolf is more offense oriented rather than defense. The wolf speed is so fast that it is already 20m away from Ryou. Ryou however shows no panic seeing that. It was rare to see such calmness because almost every new player that seen such a sight was shocked by the speed of the wind wolf and there's a bigger reason for that. Fear, for people who lived in civilized times, they rarely meet such wild animals and the fear to be placed in life and death situation sometimes left people stunned and running away for their life. Although it was just a game, the 99.99% realism makes it as if a monster is really coming to take your life away. Even though a player will be respawned in the safe zone such as village, town, and city later on, it is still a scary experience.

「I can do it. Just like everyday practice. 」

Taking out another arrow and nock it at the bow, Ryou aimed and the arrow fly once more.

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Seeing that his attack still landed at the same spot, Ryou continues.

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One arrow per second as his attack speed allowed him, it was amazing how all of his attack never once missed the target. It was also due to how the wind wolf that is moving in a linear path despite its speed and making no attempt to dodge the attack. It will be a different case if Ryou is facing a high level monster with more advanced AI that will be dodging his attack because after all the wind wolf is still a monster in the beginner's village area. The purpose of the battle against monster around the area is to get new players become familiar with the battle system of the game.

「You have defeated the wind wolf. You gain 500 EXP(experience). 」

Looking at the EXP bar that filled by half, Ryou feel that he is moving closer towards his goal to become stronger and finally meet with his 'father'. Moving towards the wind wolf corpse, Ryou looted the monster as how it was explained at the tutorial video.

「You gained wolf pelt x 1. You gained wolf tooth x 1. 」

Looting monster and selling it to the NPC is one of the way to earned money other than quest rewards so Ryou definitely won't forget about it.

"Alright, let's find the next monster."

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Bestiary

Name: Horned Rabbit

Level: 1              Race: Beast

HP: 50                MP: 10

STR: 5                Atk: 5                  Def: 1

AGI: 3                Matk: 1              Mdef: 1

VIT: 1                  Cast: 1                Aspd: 1

INT: 1                  Crit: 1                Act: 1               

DEX: 4               

LUK: 1               

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Name: Wind Wolf

Level: 7              Race: Beast

HP: 250            MP: 10

STR: 6                Atk: 18                Def: 10

AGI: 13              Matk: 1              Mdef: 1

VIT: 5                  Cast: 1                Aspd: 0.87

INT: 1                  Crit: 1                Act: 0.87               

DEX: 5               

LUK: 1