Michael continued his hunt. His renewed strength contributed to his upgrading speed evolving. By just a few hours, he upgraded to level 4. Finishing the rabbit with the skill [Power Blow] he collected his virtual coins then went along deeper on his journey.
By now, he had collected 20 bronze virtual coins. He also collected equipment but they were mediocre : an assassin robe, an armor, a magician staff and a sword. The most powerful being a staff :
[Boros Staff(Excellent)]
[Spell power +10
Spell penetration +3
Intelligence + 3]
The quality of items were divided into common (white), excellent (green), rare (blue), epic (purple) and finally legendary (orange).
He had already completed half of his goals. The first part was leveling up and obtaining items. The other one was changing hunting ground and finding new enemies.
Thinking of this, Michael quickly made his way deeper into the forest, leaving the mutated rabbit's territory. After a few meters, he met scattered zombies.
They looked like sick humans with NPC clothes on but with purple and green rotten skin, atrophied muscle, visible internal organs exposed through grievous injuries not to mention their missing teeth, broken bones and bad smell. Their clothes were torned and dirty merchants or civilians clothes.
In fact the monsters at the start of the game were basically divided into 3 categories : mutated animals or alien animals, undead, and goblins.
It was said that each of those creatures had been a plague in the galaxy long ago before being defeated.
For some reason, you could still fight against them in the game Stellarion.
Lvl. 5 zombies had 3 skills : [resilience], [claw attack], [bite]. [resilience] akin to rigor mortis being a passive skill and [bite] being a skill with no cool down.
As long as you took note of this and were careful, individually they were not a big deal.
Especially knowing that they were slow at lvl.5 and would only become faster as their level increased.
The real problem was when they were in bigger numbers. They would transform into a horde and overwhelm their victims. Also to kill them you had to slash their neck or destroys their heads, or they would still be alive no matter how many times you hit them. No matter the HP bar it wouldn't matter.
Michael used [dash] on the first zombie he met.
[dash(lvl 3)]
[dash in the direction or away from the target at a multiple of 1.2% movement speed]
[next attack : +10% physical damage]
[cost 5 stamina]
[cooldown : 7 seconds]
He delivered a strike right on its head followed by a slash on the neck before the zombie could react.
-25 HP
-22 HP
His movement alerted 3 zombies around, who went after him. He used his footwork to avoid being surrounded.
But his focus was the first zombie he hit. The Imperial Standard Martial Art (E.S.M.A) was useful in this case. Its footwork allowed him to manipulate the brainless and slow zombies and dance around them.
With graceful step he avoided claw attacks and sliced with every opening. After a few exchanges, the cooldown for [dash] had ended. Still targetting the first zombie with low HP he activated the skill and delivered a [power blow].
[power blow(lvl 2)]
[deliver a power strike on the enemy]
[+15% physical damage]
[cost 5 stamina]
[cooldown : 8 seconds]
-32 HP.
Those movements turned the zombie being living dead into a true, bona fide dead creature, its head separate from its body.
+10 EXP
However, the zombies were too close to each other and were almost bundled together.
The [power blow] had allowed him to finish the first zombie, but two others profited from this instance to claw at him.
-14
-16
HP (90/120)
His health bar decreased by a quarter. He took a step back while delivering a horizontal slash to their midsection. For the first time, he didn't target their weak points, their necks. His hurried blow hit their waist. He paused once he was at sufficient distance. Taking a deep breath, he selected his second victim, the zombie with the lowest HP.
He still occasionally hit other zombies, but he prioritized the one with the lowest HP. The strategy was simple : select a target and eliminate it as fast as possible so that it would become easier to use his footwork to eliminate the rest.
Using this principle, he destroyed their life bar little by little, eliminating one zombie after another. They might have been lvl 5 and him lvl 4, but they had no talents and his stats were above theirs not to mention, his footwork, their low speed and him targeting their weak points.
Nevertheless, by the time he finished, he was almost out of breath. His powerful [Nova physique] had given a +10% in constitution attributes while under the sun, which increased his stamina. Had he not gained the constitution, he would have been on the ground trying to catch his breath.
[lvl 4] [EXP : 70/140]
[advance stats] :
[stamina : 20/120]
[physical damage : 22 (+10)]
[attack speed : 16]
[movement speed : 12]
[spirit : 100/100]
His stamina had decrease to 20 (17%).
Constitution affects defense and stamina in the game and when the stamina approaches 0, you would have difficulties moving and be out of breath just like real life. The Nova Physique decreased his damage taken and allowed him to stay on his feet. Michael was satisfied with that. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he wiped away the sweat over his brows.
After a few seconds of recuperation, he approached the corpse. Seeing the coins on the ground, a smile took form on his face. Zombies would give more coins as they were a humanoid type monsters and the difference in level contribute to bigger rewards.
It was just more risky to fight zombies, as they could fight in groups. Not only that, but the higher level zombies would not be slow.
He collected the coins and counted them.
For his troubles he gained 15 bronze coins for a total of 35. After 2 days of hunting, he had collected 20 bronze coins previously.
The difference was night and day. Not only that, but each zombie would give him 10 EXP. Killing 7 Zombies would allow to level up.
This thought came to his mind and he decided to continue, not wanting to stop close to lvl 5.
After 2 consecutive hunts, he reached level 5 and put 3 attributes points into Speed and 2 into Reaction. They each reached 14.46 and 12.67 in order. His beginner swordsmanship increased to lvl. 4 improving his physical damage to 24 (+1%). He also gained 30 coins, for a total of 65 bronze coins.
After collecting his loot, Michael took the decision to return to Affron and disconnect. Tomorrow he would buy more skills and hunt in this zone. For now, he was satisfied.
Stepping foot into the town, he disconnected and stepped out of the capsule. He went to his mirror to watch himself.
After all, he didn't forget that his physique had transformed. He needed to see if there was anything alien apparent. However, despite his bloodline and physique change, there was nothing visible. No matter how long he watched himself, he couldn't see anything that had mutated. He felt relieved.