Ethan took a break to catch his breath when his phone buzzed.
Pulling it from his pocket, the caller ID showed Lyla. He smiled, answering with a relaxed tone.
"Where'd you disappear to?" Lyla's voice rang out on the other end.
"What, worried I ran away?" Ethan teased, starting his walk back toward the villa.
"Hmph, breakfast's ready. Come eat if you want!" Lyla snapped back playfully before hanging up.
Back at the villa, the dining table was laden with a perfectly plated breakfast.
After eating with Lyla and enjoying her company, the rest of the day melted into an endless spree of wandering through shops. By the time the game servers were set to open in the evening, Ethan was already feeling the weight of exhaustion.
Collapsing into his VR capsule, he exhaled deeply. "Shopping all day… I swear, why do women never get tired of it?"
---
Once logged back in, he was still standing on the swamp platform, where the Swamp Leviathan had just respawned. Without hesitation, Ethan threw two spells at the creature.
-1!
-20!
He felt the satisfying effect of True Damage first hand, enhancing the spells. This caused a wide grin to appear on his face.
Ding...
[You've defeated the Swamp Leviathan. Bonus for over-level combat: +1500% EXP gain! Reward: 64,000 EXP (Base: 2,000; Over-Level Bonus: 30,000; Unique Talent Growth Bonus: 32,000).]
A vibrant glow enveloped Ethan as two golden rings of light lifted him to Level 12, with 1% progress on his next bar.
"Yesterday, my damage peaked at 180 per minute," Ethan mused. "Today, it's soaring over 3,700 in the same timeframe."
However, the smaller level gap meant less bonus EXP for overlevel kills.
Still, this time it took less than 20 minutes to take down the Swamp Leviathan, a massive improvement in efficiency.
Using the Wingbeat skill to descend, Ethan collected a silver-tier one-handed sword, a gold coin, and eleven reinforcement stones from the fallen beast.
While druids could wield a wide variety of weapons, items like one-handed swords, hammers, bows, crossbows, and shields were incompatible with the class.
Without hesitation, Ethan used all eleven reinforcement stones, upgrading his staff to +25.
He took a moment to check his current stats:
---
[[NotADruid]
Class: Druid
Race: Human
Level: 12
Faction: Survivor
Bloodline: King of Elves (Divine)
Strength: 60 (Growth Index: 20) – Enhances physical attack.
Intelligence: 60 (Growth Index: 20) – Increases magical attack and mana pool.
Agility: 60 (Growth Index: 20) – Improves attack speed, movement speed, and energy recovery.
Stamina: 60 (Growth Index: 20) – Boosts defense.
Vitality: 60 (Growth Index: 20) – Expands health capacity.
Enhanced Stats:
Omni +2, Mastery +4, Critical +4, Haste +3
Attack Power: 330–491
Defense: 126–228
Health: 1,200
Free Stat Points: 0
Experience: 1,211 / 44,000
Skills:
Basic Appraisal: Analyze monsters up to 5 levels higher.
Equipment:
Weapon: Primal Warstaff (Leviathan) +25
Bracelet: Blazing Bracelet +30
Rings: Ring of True Sight, Ring of Detection
Helmet: Pilot's Hood
Chest: Pilot's Vest
Pants: Pilot's Leather Pants
Gloves: Pilot's Gloves
Boots: Pilot's Boots
The slots for shoulders, wrists, belt, and necklace were still empty.
Ethan couldn't help but feel a swell of pride. "Most players my level would be lucky to deal even a quarter of my damage."
Enhanced attributes in the game became accessible after upgrading bronze-tier or higher gear to +10, +20, or +30. Bronze gear provided +1, silver +2, and so on. For instance, Omni, which had gotten when he hit +10 for the bracelet.
Critical Hits were straightforward, each point increased crit chance by 0.3%.
Haste was split into physical and magical bonuses. One point added a 0.3% boost to attack speed for physical classes or casting speed for magic users.
Mastery was a bit more complex, especially for druids, since it changed based on forms:
Panther Form: +1% to Bleed and finishing move damage for every point.
Owl Form: +1% to Astral damage.
As for the other forms, Ethan didn't know yet. In his previous life, druids were so rare that few players even managed to equip reinforced gear.
Ethan could already start the quest to unlock Bear Form, but he decided not to waste time. Getting out of the Starter Zone as soon as possible was his priority; that's where the real game began.
Shifting into his druid form, Ethan sprinted forward. With his Agility stat, his base movement speed in human form was already at 106%. After transforming into Panther Form, it surged to 136%, making him absurdly fast.
Most players received a 0.1% speed boost for every two Agility points. Thanks to Ethan's divine growth, each point of his Agility provided a 0.1% boost.
Ethan's goal was simple: claim the first kills on both the Level 10 and Level 15 Starter Zone bosses. The gold rewards were nothing to scoff at.
When He arrived at the Spectral Wolf's Level 15 spawn zone, a system message popped up.
[Incoming message from Skyblade.]
"Hey, is that you at the top of the rankings?"
Ethan had hidden his character name, but the leaderboard in Zone 1314 showed a Level 12 player at the top. The second-place player was barely Level 5. Speculation exploded in the global chat.
Even Skyblade wasn't entirely sure it was Ethan.
He wasn't the only one wondering. The situation was causing ripples not just in Zone 1314 but worldwide.
An eighth-level European player, a paladin from the Survivor Faction, posted:
"What? Someone's already Level 12? How's that even possible?"
A seventh-level Japanese player with twin blades from the Carnage Faction chimed in:
"No way I'm losing to a bunch of noobs. Must be some kind of cheat or perhaps, a bug..."
A Korean Necromancer at Level 7, also Carnage Faction, confidently declared:
"That player? Probably one of us. Koreans always dominate at this. They're definitely grinding out of Dragonspire."
Meanwhile, a hulking shield tank, Survivor Faction, muttered in a heavy accent before typing:
"Hey, whoever you are, you're sitting on some kind of trick for leveling. Don't keep it to yourself, spill it."
—
Dragonspire, Starter Zone 1
A ninth-level archer had just brought down a massive Level 12 Savage Bear. Checking his private messages, he muttered, "Interesting," before preparing to kite his next target.
His strategy was simple, stay mobile and out of melee range while whittling down enemies. Though his damage numbers were low, often single digits, his arrows inflicted bonus True Damage and applied various debuffs like slow effects.
Had Ethan been there to witness this, he would have cursed the extravagance. Archers were known to be the fastest solo leveling class, but only for those with money.
High-tier arrows with additional True Damage and debuff effects came at a steep price. Even the most basic enhancement arrows cost 5 silver coins per barrel, each containing 1,000 arrows, but their damage was mediocre.
This archer's attacks, however, packed an additional 100 True Damage per shot. While not the best on the market, such arrows still cost at least 5 gold coin per barrel.
Every shot cost roughly 5 copper coins—that's $9 in USD per shot. It was as if the player were burning cash for fun.
This particular individual had single-handedly driven the gold-to-silver exchange rate in Dragonspire's Eastern Zone Starter Area to a jaw-dropping $1,000 for a single silver coin.
This was the infamous legend known as Feather. In Ethan's previous life, a pretty reknown group of people had mocked his methods, spreading rumours that he was a Pay-to-Win Pin Cushion. The insult was short-lived, Feather had tracked down his critics, hunting and forcing them back to the starter zone.
This had caused everyone to revere him as the God of Arrows.