Stivi snapped out of her daze after seeing me distance myself from her.
She realized how weird the scene must've been for me and explained, "Animal-type mobs in wild do not drop equipment. Most of them leave behind byproducts like these Fangs, which can be bartered in the settlement for copper coins, potions and other services."
The statement doused a bucket of cold water over my burning ambitions of finding a weapon for myself on this trip.
Moreover, all the mobs spawned around the Village no. 89 were various types of animals, meaning they would not drop any equipment either. This realization made me despair even more.
"Those shitty Imagine Corporation bastards!" I let out a curse as my chances of finding a weapon in the wild seemed to slip out of my grasp.
Then a thought struck me.
Would players even play Dreamverse VR if they could not get items in the beginner village?
Also, some players had found and equipped Weapons and armor. In fact, five of them were right before me!
That meant getting weapons was possible, just the way was yet to be discovered by the majority of the players. I narrowed my eyes at Stivi and asked, "Then how did you guys get your equipment?"
Stivi smiled as if she knew I would quickly catch on.
"We found Mia and HardBro's staves from hidden treasure groves in the wild while Zamir, BigSoftie, and I exchanged our equipment for some animal byproducts at the Blacksmith's."
Her explanation resolved the doubts in my heart. At this moment, the shy little girl Mia chimed from the side.
"Wasn't the White-Wood grade Shield at the Blacksmith's for 10 White Fangs? If we can exchange for it, our Party would be the first to have White-Wood Equipment in the entirety of Village No. 89!"
MamaMia gave voice to the thoughts in all the other party members' minds, causing everyone to turn to her. Seeing the attention focused on her, she squeaked and turned crimson red before quieting down.
The lowest grade of equipment in Dreamverse was Ash-Grey. Players usually called equipment of this grade as TrashGrey. The weapons that Stivi and her party members currently used were also of Ash-Grey Grade.
The Grades above Ash-Grey were White-Wood, Black-Stone, Bronze-Copper, Blood-Iron, Soul-Silver, and Heart-Gold.
Equipment stats increased by at the least 130% to 150% as one went up the grades. For example, if a Ash-Grey Sword had 6-8 Attack, then a White-Wood Sword of the same series would have 8-10 Attack and Black-Stone Grade Sword would have 11-14 attack power.
The Metallic Grades, that is, equipment of Bronze-Copper rank and above, also boosted the Core stats of Players.
Soul-Silver and Heart-Gold equipment even came with a skill attached, making them the choice weapons of most of the Players.
There were also Epic, Legendary, and Mythic grades above the Metallic Grades but not much information had been released about them on the official page.
Remembering this info, I could now understand why this Party of elites was enamored by a few White Fangs that seemed like junk.
Hell, even I was looking forward to gathering more of them at this point so I could exchange them for a Bow!
But before that, I still needed to find a suitable strategy that would allow us to safely grind these Wild Dogs.
I had to consider two things when devising a grinding strategy. I had to somehow limit the number of Wild Dogs our Melee players would face at a time and also take into account the almost nonexistence of our magic classes.
MamaMia only knew one spell, Healing Prayer. It took about 3 seconds to cast and would last for 5 seconds, recovering 10 HP per second. It also had a cooldown of 20 seconds which meant our MT was on his own for most of the time.
HardBro's Icy Wind was a good spell. It had a fantastic effect of slowing down Enemies by 20%, but it compromised on the damage, dealing only 60% of his total magic attack.
Moreover, he could only cast it once every 30 seconds. During this time, he could fight as a Melee Combatant, albeit a weak one.
Zamir and Stivi were the only two consistent damage dealers of this Party.
Zamir knew two dagger skills- Throat Slit and Stunning Stab. The first skill, if executed correctly, would make the target bleed, reducing 10 to 15 HP for 10 seconds. The Stunning Stab had a chance to stun the target for 2 seconds while dealing 120% damage.
On the other hand, Red Queen had recreated her own Combo skill from the previous games- the Triple Hit Combo. It could easily deal around 90 to 120 normal damage to the dogs even if none of the strikes hit the Critical spots.
Stivi had also learned Beheading Slash, a skill that sacrificed speed for strength and dealt a massive amount of damage. She could also potentially behead or amputate her enemies after the skill reached mastery.
This was all the information I had discovered from our previous fight against the Wild Dogs.
Stivi's Party could, at most, deal with two Wild Dogs safely. More than that would be just asking for trouble. Even in the previous fight, had I not triggered a Lethal Strike, we faced a real chance of team wipe.
I looked around to search for a narrow opening that would limit the number of our enemies to two at a time, but in these wild grasslands, it was impossible for such a structure to exist.
There were huge boulders sparsely located around the top of the hillock, but they were not the kind of defensive structure I had in mind.
Just as I was about to think of some other solution, the huge round boulders, steep slopes, and Wild Dogs that roamed in packs gave me an idea.
My brain kicked into action and started to calculate some possible outcomes. A few seconds later, I arrived at a conclusion.
Yep, this could work…