He started to run after the rabbits in the carrot farm, but they completely outpaced him when they are running away and not attacking him. At the end of the farm, he could see a large rabbit with red eyes, fangs and horns. The other rabbits were placing carrots around it. He ate a piece of bread to fill up his HP.
[Monster Rabbit Leader] (Special Elite)
Level 2
HP 100
As soon as he came into its vicinity. The Rabbit leader began to attack him. It was far quicker than the others. The rabbit bit into his leg, before he could evade. A notification popped up along with a pop up of -5 over his head.
"You gave been bitten by Monster Rabbit Leader. Bleed effect has been cast."
"You will lose 2 health once every 5 seconds"
It was already tough to handle the elite rabbits. Now this special elite even had a skill. None of this was posted on the forum by the person who finished the quest.
The rabbit leader was fast but not too fast for him to evade. It also had a higher defense value than the others. Every attack by Balthazar only caused the mandatory damage of 1point. The main problem with the rabbits was that they were small and attacked from multiple directions in a group.
When the rabbit leader attacked the rest moved aside to give it space. Noticing this, Balthazar focused his attention only on the rabbit leader. He slowly managed to whittle away its health without other injuries.
When the HP of the rabbit leader reached 20, it began to squeal loudly. It went into an enraged state. The squeals were clearly a call for help. A few of the elite monster rabbits joined it in the fight.
This was exactly what Balthazar was hoping would not happen. He was already forced to put his entire focus to avoid the skill of the rabbit leader. Now, more of the critters would be supporting it and his remaining health was just 75. The elite monster rabbits along with the leader would easily kill him in a minute.
He decided that it would be best to take down the rabbit leader as fast as while allowing the elite monster rabbits to attack him. He quickly ran towards the rabbit leader and sidestepped it as it jumped towards him. He immediately used his stab skill on its back side.
Due to the skill usage on a sensitive part of its body, the attack caused a damage of four points.
"Stab Skill completion rate:60%, caused 80% skill damage"
He quickly followed it and continued to deal damage. In five seconds,he reduced its health to 10. At the same time the elite also reduced his health by 20 points.
As the stab skill came off cooldown, he repeated the stab skill, but this time he chose his positioning properly and executed it striking the rabbit leader's eye.
A small red colored -7 popped amidst the string of -1s atop the rabbit leader's head.
"Stab Skill completion rate: 90%, caused 120% skill damage. Proficiency increased by 2 points."
He quickly hit the rabbit leader three times with his dagger to end it's life. He received 30 experience points which is 50% more than the expected amount due to level difference of two. He had only 30 HP left.
"Completed quest: Help Hart to get rid of the rabbits from the carrot field. Report back to Hart for your reward."
A few of the remaining elite monster rabbits continued to attack him, while the remaining ran away. Balthazar quickly killed the ones attacking him in a couple of minutes and went to loot the rabbit leader.
"[Rabbit's foot - Talisman] (White trash)
Level 1
Agility +2; Luck +5;
Durability 10/10;
To be equipped as an ornament"
He finally got it. The only reason for which Balthazar wasted his time on the rabbits which provided little experience points was this.
He knew that the chance of getting the rabbit's foot was low, but if he is the first one to kill it, the chances were a lot high, close enough to consider a guarantee drop. That's the reason he chose to complete this quest while others were levelling up outside the village.
It had been over 30 minutes since he started playing and almost all the players who started at the same time already levelled up.
Other than the rabbit's foot which he immediately equipped, he also looted a pair of monster rabbit fangs, a rabbit skin pelt and 20 coppers from the rabbit leader's corpse. The corpse immediately turned into white light like the rest. Now, he had a total of 18 rabbit skin pelts and 40 coppers that he received from killing in the carrot farm
He quickly went back to Hart's shop to complete the quest. A quick notification popped up indicating that he had completed the quest and was awarded 50 experience points and 20 coppers.
"Player levelled up, need 380 experience points for the next level"
Balthazar quickly checked and noticed that his strength and agility increased by two points while the remaining attributes by one point each. He also got 4 more free attribute points. He added 2 points to Strength and a point each to vitality and agility before he set off to exit the village.
He bought five health potions and two slowing poison bottles from Hart's shop. It cost him 50 coppers leaving him a meagre amount of 10 coppers. He also used these 10 coppers to buy a map of the surroundings from Hart. Maps were very useful in making decision in such new places. Though they cost 10 coppers which is hard to earn initially, it is in general recommended to get one.
After he spent more than 50 coppers at Hart's shop, a yellow dot appeared on Hart's head indicating, that he had another quest. He then remembered that many such NPCs would tend to have hidden conditions like making purchases after the previous quest to give a new one. It was similar to how merchants would get friendly with customers who make more purchases. He immediately asked Hart if he could be of some help to him
"A request was made to make a necklace from the shaman of a Jundal tribe. Could you please procure few wolf teeth."
"Ding! You received a new quest. Procure wolf teeth for Hart"
[Procure wolf teeth for Hart] (Difficulty: Novice)
Progress: Wolf teeth obtained 0/30;
The first thing he did after that was to equip the rabbit's foot. Then he went to the weapons trainer to learn the basic Assassin skills. He quickly learned the skill Stealth.
"Stealth: Allows a player to move around unnoticed. Skill Level: 1; Instant Cast. Cooldown: 10 seconds."
He quickly went outside the village and checked the map. To the left of the village were the red grass plains followed by the Blackrock hills. The right side of the village was the Arwild forest. The path in the middle led to the Red leaf village but was filled with higher level monsters. There was also a small river between the plains and the blackrock hills which fed water to the village.
The river thinned at a point, a few miles away from the village. It was sure to have a bridge there. The map only showed the natural structures and not constructions till a person reached that point. But Balthazar from his previous experiences was sure that a bridge would be there.
He made his way towards the Blackrock hills. Such areas were always a good source for mining. That would enable him to gather some herbs and iron ores too. So, he set off towards the bridge shown in the map. Soon, he came into contact with the rocky mountain wolves but there were already somebody attacking it.
He could see it was a level 2 wolf. This area was the outskirts of the Blackrock hills. This area would be known in a few hours for its abundance of herbs by the river. Only few wolves estranged from their pack would be found alone in this area. There were a group of people clearing the area.
[Mountain Wolf] (Common Monster)
Level 2
HP: 100
"The Sirius Imperials have taken over this area. Please evacuate."
There were more than 30 people from the Sirius Imperials clearing the area. He hated such instances when the large guilds held such clearances of the monster farming areas. But he didn't have any friends supporting him and could hardly go against 30 people alone. The number of wolves in this area was also very small.
A berserker with a long heavy spear approached him. "Couldn't you hear? The Sirius Imperials are farming here. Get out of here," he said. He was a level 1 berserker and seemed to have already swapped his Level 0 Trash weapon.
"Don't worry. I am not interested in the wolves here. I am going beyond this area," said Balthazar as he quickly ran away and cast stealth. With the amount of attribute point he invested in agility, he was very faster than most of them and manged to get away unscathed.
The berserker along with a few others followed him but were unable to reach him. "Forget him, we can kill him if he is found in the area. If he actually goes much deeper than us, the monsters will kill him," said the player leading the group. He was a ranger named 'Blue Dart'. "Make a note of his name - Shadow Tyrant", he continued while attacking a wolf.
Balthazar ran into a few more level 2 mountain wolves as he came nearer to the Blackrock hills. He quickly applied the poison and used ambush to attack them. The wolves usually were in packs of three to four. When one of them was attacked by him, the remaining also attacked him.
The wolves had two main skills: Rend and Paw attack. Rend causes a bleed attack on the player and paw attack had high damage. The only advantage that Balthazar had was that it was slower than him and he could evade almost all attacks from the wolves, even if 6 of them attacked him together.
Moreover, he also applied the slowing poison to his blade, which lasted for 2 hours per bottle. The poison slowed down the wolves and he always used ambush to attack them having an advantage.
He also knew that attacks aimed at the weak points of such large monsters are more effective than others. If a person manages to hit the eyes, it can even cause a bleed effect.
Each of the mountain wolves gave an experience of 20. By the time, he reached the river separating the fields from the Blackrock hills, he had killed more than 15 wolves and managed to get 10 wolf furs and 12 wolf teeth. He was just 40 exp away from level 2.
The wolves hardly gave any coppers. He got only 10 coppers even with the rabbit's foot. Luckily, he got a long sword among the loot.
[One-sided Wooden long sword] (White trash tier, sword)
Level 1
Equipment Requirement: Strength 8;
Attack Power +8
Durability 15/15
He had a strength of 7 points and it required atleast 8 points in strength for him to equip the sword. In vita-nova, there were no restriction for the weapons based on the occupation, except for a few special ones.
An assassin can even equip a mage's wand and use it to hit. But the skills of a mage couldn't be used by an assassin, which made it a useless piece of log in his hand.
Balthazar thought he could equip the sword, once he reached level 2. Even though he has no skills to be used for the sword, he could at least use it to block monster attacks.
He checked the level ranking list and found out that the top 10 were all still at level 1. This implied that he was very close to being in the top. He immediately selected the option to remove his name from the list.
At the bridge, there was an old man looking over the bridge. He was an NPC with a yellow dot blinking over him. The usual quest giving NPCs had a yellow dot over them, but not one which blinked. This was a special case, which Balthazar had never seen before.
He slowly approached the old man. The man had long pointed ears and Balthazar had found his face very similar to Lucius for some reason. The text above the NPC read "old man Rotar".
The NPCs in vita-nova were all very close to characters in real life. They had their own consciousness and intelligence. If they don't have some restrictions, they would just break the game and be the same as players.
As he reached the NPC, he asked, "Respected Sir, you seem to be looking for something. Could I probably help you with something?"
"Dear boy, my grandson is on the other side of the bridge. While we were walking through the area, I felt some elf magic over from the depths of the Blackrock hills. My grandson ran towards it as soon as he felt it, but I am unable to cross the river due to a curse in the area. Could you contact him and tell him to come back here before anything untowardly happens to him."
"Sure, Sir. But how do I convince him to return?"
"You could show him this," said Rotar giving him a small round pin with a symbol of what looked like a griffin on it. "This is my crest. He would recognize it."
As he received the pin, he got the notification.
[Rotar's Request: Pass on Rotar's message to his grandson] (Difficulty: Hard)
Quest Description: Convince Rotar's grandson to return back.
Received quest item: Rotar's crest: Stealth skill level +1; Agility +2; Strength +2;
Progress: Find Rotar's grandson (To be completed);
Balthazar was extremely surprised that he had received a quest which was of Hard difficulty. It also provided him with a quest item, which provided him attributes and increased skill level. He was also not overly fond of the quest as there is a high chance that he would be killed in such quests. It would also take a lot more time than the usual quests.
He quickly thought about it and the time in the world was displayed to be 12.25 a.m. He still had a lot of time till the morning and decided to complete the quest.