[Time left: 3 seconds]
[Time left: 2 seconds]
[Time left: 1 second]
[Time left: 0 seconds]
Suddenly, a guard appeared and unlocked the cell door with a ring of keys.
"Do not attack a citizen again," the guard warned. "The second offense will have a greater punishment."
Eisen nodded sullenly and walked past the guard, not daring to insult the armored behemoth as he normally would've. He still clearly remembered the guard's overwhelming power.
[Mudbrick Town Guard lv. 50]
'Once I have a higher level, I'll come back to destroy you all,' he swore in his heart.
Meanwhile, he simply mumbled a goodbye and left.
Eisen left Mudbrick Town, and began hiking through the wilderness. While he was walking towards some well-known leveling spots according to the Gigantomachia forum, he opened up his status screen.
[username: Five Five]
[class & lv: Fighter lv. 0]
[health: 110/110]
[stamina: 105/105]
[mana: 55/55]
[stats: Strength 2, Dexterity 1, Power 1, Casting 1, Agility 1, Stamina 1, Mana 1, Vitality 2]
(New!) [free stat points: 4]
[skills: Power Strike lv. 1]
[passive skills: Basic Weapons Training lv. 1]
He quickly placed 2 points into Strength and another 2 points into Agility.
'No reason to invest into health points as long as I don't get hit,' he reasoned.
Obviously, not getting hit was easier said than done. It was all down to the player's skill.
Eisen continued walking along a worn-out trail, advancing deeper into the woods. The trail became more and more overgrown as he walked, and the trees became denser.
As the woods became denser, Eisen drew his sword and paid more attention to his surroundings. Packs of level 5 direwolves wandered through the woods, and an unlucky encounter could mean his death.
Not that his death would mean much; he had no levels or Skill EXP to lose anyways.
Eisen spotted a small gathering of wolves. They weren't anything special really, just early-game mobs.
After watching the pack's movement pattern for a few moments, he charged forward and slashed at the closest wolf.
[-11]
Dumbfounded, Eisen paused in his attack.
[Wolf lv. 1]
[hp: 239/250]
"What's with this pathetic damage!?" he yelled, outraged. Most games had an easy time leveling up in the early-game and he was shocked that beginner mobs were already incredibly tough for new players.
The wolves quickly surrounded him, the encirclement preventing Eisen's escape. Several wolves simultaneously lunged forward, fangs flashing. While Eisen avoided the frontal assault, another wolf sank their teeth into his leg.
A flash of pain was accompanied with ridiculous damage numbers and a floating system message.
[-35]
'That was almost third of my health bar!' he gaped.
[You have been Grappled! A movement speed reduction will be applied based on the difference between Strength stats. Attacks against Grappled targets deal an additional 10% damage!]
A small, black icon appeared in the corner of his vision.
He continued slashing desperately, despite knowing his efforts were ultimately futile.
Another wolf slashed his arms with gleaming claws. Despite the pain sensitivity only turned up to 25% Eisen screamed like a five-year-old.
[-39]
The encirclement combined with the Grappled status effect was a lethal trap for new players. The wolves held power in numbers over solo players, like Eisen.
Another wolf slashed him, this time from behind.
[You have been Backstabbed! Attacks from behind deal an additional 25% damage.]
[-45]
'What the hell!? This game is so unfair!' he raged, watching as his vision faded to black for the second time in a row.
[You died! Deducting 1 Level and 1,000 random Skill EXP.]
[Not enough EXP to deduct.]
[Penalty canceled.]
Eisen awoke in the middle of the street, back in Mudbrick Town. Absolutely fuming, he gripped his sword with powerful murderous intent; even veteran players had never seen such a violent aura around incredibly powerful mobs.
"Fuck this game! My items are trash, that's why I died! Fucking pay-to-win!" he fumed.
[Beginner's Sword lv. 1 - Trash]
[+1 Strength]
[Basically garbage, might as well scrap it. Then again, it's better than nothing. What did you expect?]
"This game is for dumbass whales! Fucking greedy-ass game developers!"
However, there was no purchasable items within Gigantomachia. The company that created the game simply managed the exchange of in-game and real life currency between players, deducting a small transaction fee.
While Eisen wasn't someone who played the game from the lauch date, the game had only launched a few weeks ago. The players who had enough money to spare for exchange were few in number, thus making it difficult to purchase enough in-game currency for much of anything.
Eisen, of course, was ignorant.
He stormed back into the woods, his sword flickering in the sunlight.
He charged into the woods, yelling at the top of his lungs. More than half the words that came out of his mouth were expletives.
It took six more deaths before he gave up on a frontal attack and bitterly admitted defeat. Instead, he tried a different tactic: searching for strategies online.
"Let's try this one," he grunted noncommittally.
He walked deeper into the woods, resisting the urge to scream and swing his sword in a temper tantrum again.
Eisen quickly found another pack of wolves. Just the sight of the monsters made his face flush red and veins bulge on his forehead.
This time however, he kept his temper in check.
Barely.
He grabbed a stone and threw it at a nearby tree. The loud "thock" drew the attention of the wolves, and they seemed to communicate with each other before one wolf approached the sound tentatively.
Once he was completely certain that the straggler had left the 25-meter detection radius of the rest of the pack, a deadly gleam flashed in Eisen's eyes.
He swung his sword, slashing at the wolf's neck. However, this time he used a skill.
'Power Strike!'
Power Strike was a basic skill for nearly all melee classes, and granted a 50% increase in damage for one attack. However, it had a cooldown of 30 seconds which made it unwieldy without other complementing skills.
The blade glowed slightly and appeared to speed up, before gouging into the monster. The wolf yelped, jumping away and twisting around to confront the attacker.
(Critical hit!) [-36]
'I must be lucky!' he laughed internally.
Since his Dexterity stat was only 1, he had a very low chance of dealing a critical hit. Even when he aimed for vital spots, which increased the chance of a critical hit, he rarely saw results.
Combined with the Backstab effect from attacking the wolf from behind, he had dealt damage equivalent to what the wolves regularly dealt.
Eisen smiled wickedly as he looked at the wolf's health bar.
[Wolf lv. 1]
[hp: 214/250]
He had removed nearly a fifth of the wolf's health, which was far more progress that he had made before.
Now that he was dealing with a single wolf, he had a much easier time dodging the wolf's attacks. Surprisingly, his previous deaths had not been for nothing; he now recognized the attack patterns of the wolf.
Eisen barely managed to jump aside, dodging the bite attack of the wolf. He slashed again and again, a cruel light in his eyes.
Quickly, the wolf's HP dropped into the red zone, and then into the double digits. Seeing that his Skill cooldown was over, Eisen raised his sword once more.
'Power Strike!'
[-15]
Although the attack wasn't a critical hit, the wolf had very little HP left. The monster collapsed onto the forest floor and disappeared into fragments of light. Finally, Eisen killed his first mob.
[+5 EXP]
Excited, he watched his EXP bar with expectant eyes. However, the EXP he gained was barely visible.
"What the fuck!? Why wasn't there any increase!? Is this bugged!?"
Immediately, he logged onto the game forum and made a post. His fingers blazed with the speed of an incensed, whiny gamer.
"Bug report: My experience won't rise even though I killed a monster!"
Almost as soon as he made the post, a comment appeared.
Silent Snow-3:12 PM
Lmao, these noobs are just too funny
Eisen looked at the comment, completely confused. Shortly after, several more comments made a mockery of him.
Yesterday's Dinner-3:13 PM
HAHAHAHA THIS DUMBASS DOESNT KNOW SHIT
Storm Cloud-3:13 PM
Don't you know it takes 1000 EXP to level up? You should really check out the informational website or the online player's guide.
Silent Snow-3:13 PM
Maybe he's too r*tarded to read lol
Eisen's face flushed red, from a mixture of embarassment and rage. He frustratedly screamed into the air, his voice growing hoarse.
He turned towards the rest of the wolf pack, intended to vent his anger onto the hapless mobs; killing them would be trivial now that he had the strategy.
Suddenly, Eisen noticed the faint sound of laughter and tromping footsteps. As the sounds grew louder, he saw the source of the noise: a rowdy group of players.
The party's laughter died down and their expressions became more serious when they spotted the wolf pack. They began to take formations, before charging forward to attack the wolves.
Eisen snorted. 'These dumbasses think these monsters are easy prey. Wait until they get completely overwhelmed.'
A barrage of skills knocked the first wolf back, while the shirtless Brawler tanked several attacks from the other wolves.
Eisen paled and his eyes popped out of his head as he realized that the players actually might win. He hurriedly emerged from the dense foliage, where he had hidden and fought the singled-out wolf. "Hey, you stupid fucks! Those are my prey! Find your own fucking grinding spot!" he raged, indignant at the party.
"Or what?" taunted one of the players. He was most likely the party's Guardian and main tank, judging from his beginner's plate mail armor.
Eisen opened and closed his mouth a few times like a catfish. He couldn't even think of anything vaguely threatening to say.
During that time, the party eliminated the entire pack of wolves easily. The Brawler and Guardian took turns as MTs, allowing the Deacon in the back to have an easier time healing. The main damage dealer appeared to be the Ranger, who was also in the back, and the Brawler occasionally damaged the wolves with a few unarmed attacks and Skills.
After the wolves died, the Deacon healed everyone back to full health, before the party collected the drops.
These players worked in perfect tandem and had exceptional teamwork.
Eisen gaped. 'They must be incredibly over-levelled for this grinding spot!'
The Guardian laughed at Eisen's bewildered face, and the rest of the party gave the solo player an annoyed glare.
The Guardian smiled, before him and his party left to go find more mobs. "Bye loser!"
As they left, Eisen was flushed red once more. However, this time he had no words for his rage.
He eventually managed to calm himself down, reminding himself that those players were probably higher leveled than he was. 'Trying to fight them would be suicide,' he rationalized. He didn't want to lose all his progress from the Death Penalty, after he took so long just to get 5 EXP.
Suddenly, Eisen remembered the wolf's drops, which he left in the bushes. He scrambled back to collect the item drops.
The drops had de-spawned.
He screamed towards the heavens, cursing the unfairness of it all.