Eisen returned to grinding levels by killing wolves with a frenzied fervor. With single-minded focus, he slowly and methodically killed over a hundred wolves.
While sorting through his inventory, he frowned. "Why do I have so few inventory slots?"
He quickly realized that he would need storage items like pouches and spatial rings to enlarge his inventory. With only 20 inventory slots, he could only carry several stacks of pelts since he reserved most of the space for the equipment he had gathered, all of which was Trash-ranked.
With an impatient grunt, he decided to toss the wolf pelts; they weren't of much use to him yet, and the Trash-ranked gear would sell to the NPCs for a far better price. He still kept 3 stacks of pelts, just in case he discovered a use for them later.
After another couple of hours, he had reached level 3. He considered logging out to get something to eat, but decided against that idea. Gigantomachia would become far more active during real-life nighttime, since players could play while asleep.
Also, Eisen didn't have anything to eat.
He sighed, his mind constantly drifting to his empty bank account. This only made him more focused in his efforts.
"I can't even buy a few beers," he groused while landing the death blow on another wolf.
[+5 EXP]
[You have levelled up! Gained 4 free stat points and 10 free skill mastery points.]
He placed all his mastery points into his Basic Weapons Training, giving it a total of 41 mastery points.
Eisen smiled wickedly, before putting all of his free stat points into Agility. Now, he had an Agility of 7, with a +1 bonus from his equipped boots. With an Agility of 8, he was far faster than before.
Now, he was ready to implement his idea.
He wandered deeper into the woods, avoiding normal wolf packs. Eventually, he reached the darker depths of the forest; even with the sun rising in the east, this part of the woods was still shrouded in shadows.
Eisen pushed aside stray branches, following the path. Suddenly, he heard several ominous howls, far closer than the last time he heard them.
Instead of panicking, he grinned.
Soon enough, he heard snuffling and shuffling footsteps from behind him. Immediately, he activated his skill, Power Strike.
He twisted around and swung his sword. The blade slammed into a shadowy, pitch-black wolf, throwing the beast back by 3-4 meters. However, this did not deter the rest of the small pack.
[-2]
Eisen paled slightly at the terrifying defense of the direwolf, before turning around and running away as fast as he could.
He began kiting the direwolves, using Power Strike to knock the four foot tall beasts away from him when they got too close. His heightened Agility barely allowed him to stay just out of reach of the direwolves' claws.
When his Stamina got too low from constantly sprinting and using Power Strike, he used trees and foliage to hide and block attacks from the Elite monsters.
Eventually, he backtracked all the way towards the lower-level grinding spot. He kept to the edges of the clearing, trying to avoid drawing aggro from the normal wolf packs. However, he misjudged the distance and several normal wolves joined the pursuers.
However, the sun had fully risen. Checking his virtual display, he could see that it was already 9:13 PM. An influx of players would soon join, since many players could not play VR games all day; they had jobs after all. However, VR games like Gigantomachia could be played while sleeping, and a large majority of the player-base would be online at night.
Just as he had hoped, Eisen spotted a small group of players killing a wolf pack. With a wicked grin, he lured the beast horde behind him towards the clueless party.
From his count, Eisen estimated that following him was 5 direwolves and 7 normal wolves.
With careful kiting and dodging, he maneuvered the wolf pack slowly but surely in the direction of the party.
The players quickly noticed Eisen once he got into a 30-meter radius of the party.
"Hey! Lead them somewhere else!"
"You cowardly bastard! Have you no shame!?"
They panicked and became enraged, but they couldn't run; turning around and fleeing while fighting a wolf pack meant near-certain death if your Agility wasn't high enough. At least staying and fighting had a miniscule chance of survival.
However, one of the party-members tried to run. Judging from their equipment and their bow, they were probably a Ranger. Despite being a Dexterity- and Agility-focused class, the wolves flanked him and Grappled him.
Quickly and methodically, the wolves brutally killed the Ranger, who screamed and cursed with his dying breaths.
The wolves who were pursuing Eisen and hadn't been attacked by him immediately switched aggro to the party, whom were closer.
The party was almost immediately overwhelmed, but just barely managed to stave off the increased number of monsters.
However, Eisen proceeded to lure the direwolves towards the party.
"Wait, stop!"
"You rat bastard! Didn't anyone ever teach you any manners?!"
Eisen interrupted their barrage of insults. "Once the direwolves kill me, they'll switch their aggro onto you guys. All of you definitely can't out-run the beasts. Help me fight the damn thing!"
The party glanced at each other, before nodding.
"We'll cooperate for now," the angry Arcane Apprentice concluded.
Eisen proceeded to assist the party with occasional sword strikes. He swung his sword, often missing barely. However, this was intentional.
Once he felt that the other players had dealt enough damage to draw the direwolves aggro enough that the monsters would prioritize killing the party more than him, he immediately sprinted as fast as he could into the bushes.
"Hey!"
"That backstabbing bastard!" raged the Arcane Apprentice, through gritted teeth. However, the remaining normal wolves surrounded the party and began methodically killing them.
Once again, the encirclement and Grappled condition were basically a death trap. Normally, the job of the main tank-- usually a Brawler or Guardian --was the herd the monsters with control Skills and ensure this situation didn't happen.
However, the party's main tank, a Brawler, was completely outclassed and outnumbered.
The party was quickly killed after one of the direwolves trampled over the Brawler and killed the healer.
Eisen spectated from over 50 meters away, hidden between the leaves and branches.
After roughly 15 minutes, the direwolves returned to the deep forest.
Before the surviving normal wolf packs could regenerate all the HP they lost, Eisen methodically dispatched them via Power Strike.
[+2 EXP]
[+2 EXP]
[+2 EXP]
"Huh, I got less EXP than normal. Is it because I'm a higher level than them?" questioned Eisen. He shrugged, before turning his attention to the drops.
Both the normal wolves and the players had dropped equipment. The wolves had dropped one piece of equipment; that was actually a rather good turnout. Eisen realized after over 6 hours of constant grinding, equipment drops from monsters was incredibly rare. Perhaps only 1-in-30 wolves would drop equipment.
Smiling, he quickly grabbed all the equipment and began sorting his inventory.
Once he was finished, he went deeper into the woods to go lure another direwolf pack towards an unsuspecting party.
He continued this direwolve-luring trap for almost another 2 hours.
Gradually, less and less players showed up. After escaping the direwolves' aggro range through some tricky maneuvering, Eisen looked at the forums.
Suddenly, he laughed loudly.
There were over ten posts about someone luring direwolves towards weak players in the outer forest of Mudbrick Town!
Smiling Drawing-12:01
What a cowardly tactic!
Sharp Spear-12:01
My whole party was killed by that bastard.
Many of the posts warned players against entering this particular grinding spot.
While this was incredibly amusing to Eisen, he did find it rather inconvenient that he would have to go back to regular grinding.
"I did make quite a lot of profit," he smiled. At this point, he wasn't even upset that players had stopped coming to the woods. Now, he had the forest all to himself as a grinding spot.
Realizing that his inventory was bursting with loot, Eisen decided to return back to Mudbrick Town to sell his spare equipment and pelts.