20 March, Year 3788, Origin era.
[Template]: Normal Template (bandit goon type)
[Personality]: Timid
[Attribute]: Level 5, HP 400, Attack 22-28, Physical Defense 15, Magical Defense 7
[Skill]: Slash
[Slash]: Inflict extra 30 damage that ignores defense of a single target. Cooldown time 30 seconds
[Equipment]: Iron sword, old rugs
[Template-leveling conditions]:
1. Reach Level 8
2. Unknown
[Activity log]: No record
[Activity range]: Around the Monolith Stronghold
[Aggro radius]: 30 yards
…
"No. 5, No. 6, you two, go and pick up five iron ores from the north Abandoned Mining Area. Those Adventurers have descended upon the Land of Origin. They are enemies, so kill on sight!"
In a place where rubble blanketed the ground and only several houses were scattered around, six bandit goons were surrounding their leader. The bandit leader was shouting at the two goons in front of him.
Did I really get reincarnated? And into a Level 5 goon in the early stage of the game from five years ago?
Mohai was carried away by his thoughts for a while, but after he made sure he was not dreaming, he could not help but scrub his chin, feeling astonished as he clicked his tongue.
No one in the whole Origin would probably react like him after going through such an unbelievable event
Five years later, the Warring Nation Arc of Origin would begin.
Who would have thought that during the invasion of the Multinational Alliance, the first guild of the Huaxia Area, which was the Huaxia Empire, the second guild, the Fortune Alliance, and the third guild, The Richest, would mutiny together, leading to the collapse of the entire the Huaxia Area?
The three major guilds represented the highest profits of the Huaxia Area. Under normal circumstances, no matter how bad the situation was, the three major guilds would never mutiny at the same time. Even if they did, it would only be a very small group of members, and the higher-ups would never do it.
However, it really happened. The higher-ups of the three major guilds used their reputation and honor that they gained over the years and promised to provide a convincing reason for their actions within 12 hours. The core members of the guilds, including a portion of common members, chose to believe the promise and wait for further orders.
At that time, Mohai had been a crazy player and he was also a guild master of a small guild who had accumulated a number of missions. His guild might be small, but they had cleared quite a number of high-difficulty missions, thus gaining somewhat of a reputation in the Huaxia Area.
Due to the betrayal of the three major guilds, the Warring Nations' main mission, which his guild had spent a lot of effort in completing and was only a little shy from completing, ended in failure.
The Huaxia Empire, the Fortune Alliance, and The Richest were the strongest guilds ever since the game began and from the beginning, no one was able to move their positions, even until then.
These three guilds were not just some common guilds as they had rich backgrounds in the real world. Originally, since he was reincarnated and got the chance of a do-over, even if he came back with the identity of a player, it was impossible to fight the three major guilds at the same time.
He was not weak at all. Given his strength, it would not be too difficult for him to build a strong guild. In the past, he liked completing missions, thus he formed a small guild and partied up with a group of players to happily do what they loved.
The three major guilds had massive support behind them, so fighting them was not as simple as having the foresight to form a guild before them.
However, he reincarnated as a monster with a leveling template. When he thought of those nearly invincible Bosses in his past life, Mohai suddenly believed that things had just gotten interesting for him.
If he could level up and upgrade to that kind of Boss, fighting the three major guilds would be a piece of cake. Those invincible Bosses could simply wipe out all three guilds with a swing of their hand.
Mohai did not learn the reason why the three major guilds turned on their people. In less than 12 hours after the three major guilds betrayed the people, while he had yet to react from the shocking turn of events, he was suddenly reincarnated into his current state.
However, no matter the reasons or the difficulties for the three major guilds' betrayal, as a young man with 'three virtues', who would hold a grudge for as long as he could, kill a beautiful lady without batting an eyelid, and snatching candy from a little girl, what the major guilds did was enough for him to list them as his enemies.
As for the reason for the betrayal, he would not mind eliminating every single one of them and then slowly search for the answer while trampling on their dead bodies.
The rough voice of the bandit leader pulled Mohai's thoughts back to reality.
"Yes, leader!"
The No. 5 and No. 6 that the leader referred to was Mohai and another bandit goon beside him respectively. Both of them looked no different from each other. Most probably other than the bandit leader and the other bandit goons, no one else could differentiate him and the rest.
As he followed bandit goon No. 6 out, Mohai scanned his attribute window again.
Level 5 bandit goon is too weak! If I don't level up the template, I won't make it to day 3!
What frustrated Mohai the most and made him curse deeply was that the attribute window only specified half of the level-up requirements!
However, it was not a difficult hurdle for Mohai. When he saw the Monolith Stronghold, a thought popped up in his mind. A long time ago, when he came to the Monolith Stronghold to complete a mission, he had encountered something strange.
Other than the Monolith Stronghold, he also encountered similar scenes in other places.
Because his level was too high when he carried out the mission, he did not clear the mobs and went for the bandit leader straight away.
In the end, after the bandit leader died, one of the bandit goons grew unusually strong.
It was obvious that the hidden level-up requirement was the death of the bandit leader!
A plan swiftly took shape in Mohai's mind.
"Huh? What's this?"
After having an initial plan, out of habit, Mohai would usually check the space in his bag. His bag had six slots, and in the last slot, he found a rather familiar item.
It was a metallic orb the size of a fist that glowed a dark golden color and had complex circuits wrapped around it.
When the main mission for the Warring Nations failed, Mohai reached out to the NPC who distributed the mission on the way back to return the mission item to the NPC.
However, the NPC who had distributed the mission was gone, and a beautiful lady NPC, whom he had never seen or heard of before, took his place.
The mysterious beautiful NPC reclaimed the mission item and gave Mohai the metallic orb. She praised him for his excellent job and gave him the orb as a mission reward.
Mohai was not concerned at first since a failed mission reward could only be average. However, when he got back to the city, to his shock, he realized that even the best appraiser failed to assess the attributes of the metallic orb. Not even its name could be identified.
It was something inconceivable. Despite having played this game for five years, he had never heard of an item that an appraiser could not even identify.
He had felt that it was odd back then, and now even after he reincarnated as a goon, the mysterious metallic orb had somehow followed him.
Mohai curiously glanced at the orb and he realized the metallic orb had already been appraised!
The template Manager!
The name of the item was strange, but it did ring a bell in his head.
As the memories resurfaced, he recalled having heard someone mention it before. No, to be precise, he had heard a Boss mention it before!
Five years later, there were nine invincible super Bosses in the Huaxia Area, one of which was the Primordial Slime King.
Slimes were low-level monsters in the game. The Primordial Slime King did not exist in the game at first but it suddenly appeared on Slime Field during a respawn. Its terrifying powers annihilated all the players that tried to hunt in, including the three major guilds. Until the start of the Warring Nations Arc, no player organizations were its match.
Mohai ground his Slime reputation to Legend and had a good affinity with the Slime race. On his missions, he saw the Primordial Slime King twice.
He remembered the Primordial Slime King mentioning the Template Manager during one of their meetings.
At that point in time, Mohai felt that it was strange, so he asked about it, but the Primordial Slime King did not provide any details. It simply said that it was the ultimate goal for all the Bosses and was only something a Boss could use.
The Primordial Slime King did not want to dwell on it. Furthermore, it was something a player could not use, so Mohai did not care.
[Template Manager]: Sealed, requires the Elite Template or higher to use.
The description of the Template Manager was simple. Be it the name or the attributes, they matched what the Primordial Slime King mentioned.
If not for the Primordial Slime King, Mohai could not imagine that this orb would be something all the Bosses in the game sought after.
Why would the mysterious beautiful NPC give him something that all the Bosses sought after as a mission reward though?
Now that he had been reincarnated as a monster, could his reincarnation was related to this so-called Template Manager?
Mohai had no answers to the question, but after he upgraded the template, he would be able to use it and might be able to get more information. The most important matter at the moment was leveling up his lousy template!
Hehe, I got reincarnated as a monster and have got such an 'imba' Boss equipment with me. Things just got a little more interesting.
Mohai's eyes shone. He somewhat looked forward to his new adventure in this game.
…
Throughout the history of Origin, the Monolith Stronghold had always been a strong large-scaled fortress. Although the whole fortress was built using sturdy gray granite, a thousand years ago, the Monolith Stronghold was besieged by the mobile military fortress, The Titan.
The Titan used a weapon that was claimed to be an Ancient Forbidden Spell called the Magical Destructive Cannon, and blasted the sturdy fortress into smithereens. Endless rubbles rained down in a kilometer range and the wide expanse of rubble was what was left of the Monolith Stronghold.
The Monolith Stronghold no longer resembled a fortress. It was blanketed with gray skeletons with lush plants and flowers in between the rocks.
Studying the familiar environment, Mohai could not help but feel sentimental.
The player's birthplace, which was a neighbor to the Monolith Stronghold, was the most famous city in the game, Guggenheim. Based on Mohai's knowledge alone, at least 30% of those important figures that would rule the Huaxia Area in five years, came from Guggenheim. That city was a legendary place that produced many players.
Mohai was not born in Guggenheim. The tales of the first batch of legendary players coming from Guggenheim and becoming important figures in the game was something that he heard about in his later adventures.
Unlike the legendary players, Mohai was a second batch player who joined the game a month after the launch. However, he was no stranger to the Monolith Stronghold.
He was a mission player and had completed several missions involving the ruins of the stronghold. The legend of the Monolith Stronghold was also captivating, but unfortunately, until he got reincarnated, he had yet to come across a valuable mission about the Monolith Stronghold. The legend of the place was more like a background history.
The Abandoned Mining Area was north of the Monolith Stronghold. The open mining area was connected to the stronghold and was close to Guggenheim.
The mining area was infested with Level 3 to 4 mole rats. The mole rats would dig up some ores to the surface, and when players were leveling in the Abandoned Mine Area, they could pick up some ores and sell them to the blacksmith of Guggenheim. Shortly after the game launched, the Abandoned Mining Area was swiftly taken over by players and became the favorite leveling spot for all.
However, in this early stage of the game, while players were still getting used to the environment, the Abandoned Mining Area was less occupied, so it would be a great opportunity for him to level up.
As a bandit goon with lousy attributes, if the number of players grew, he might not survive for long.