Chapter 6: Boar King

Sigh, leveling up is great and all, but every time I level up, I’m stuck with the awkward problem of not being able to farm talents. Wu Shaochen was starting to feel that maybe he was leveling up too fast. If those other players still scrambling over rabbits knew how he felt, they’d probably gang up on him out of jealousy.

Let’s see if level 7 monsters are doable. If not, I’ll come back and keep killing pigs. With that thought, Wu Shaochen continued deeper into the forest. The Boar Forest was massive, and it took him a while before he finally walked out of it. On the way, he ran into quite a few boars but easily shook them off. After all, with his current movement speed of 18, those boars with just 11 speed couldn’t possibly keep up.

Once out of the forest, a wide plain lay before him, and in the distance, he saw groups of gray wolves wandering about in the grass.

“Damn, that many?” Wu Shaochen’s heart sank halfway. No way he could handle that. But since he was already here, he might as well check their stats. He found a wolf closest to him and cast Insight. Luckily, the spell had enough range that he didn’t need to enter their aggro zone.

[Wild Wolf]

Level: 9
HP: 4000
Attack: 115
Defense: 55
Speed: 20

(Monsters in the Beginner Village don’t have magic attack or magic defense, so this info only shows physical stats. Speed refers to movement speed.)

Skill – Bite: Opens its jaws and bites the target, dealing 150% of physical attack damage. 50% chance to inflict bleeding, causing 5 HP loss per second for 10 seconds.

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“Damn, every time I inspect a new monster, my heart gets a workout. All I want to do afterward is curse the devs out loud.”
Even though this game didn’t really have developers in the traditional sense—everything was controlled by the AI mainframe—he’d still rather blame some faceless game planner. After all, it was rumored the mainframe was omnipotent in-game. Best not to offend it.

“Seriously, this is supposed to be a normal monster? These are straight-up boss stats!”

Wait… this thing is level 9? Then the level 7 and 8 monsters must be along the path in the middle. Yeah, better check that way. No way I’m messing with these wolves.

Wu Shaochen turned around and retreated. He chickened out.

Back in the Boar Forest, he pushed further in. Just then, a flash of golden light caught his eye from the corner. Curiously, Wu Shaochen moved toward the source of the light. After a bit of walking and brushing past some bushes, what appeared before him was an enormous wild boar—at least twice as big as the ones he had fought before. At its feet was a ring of golden light, the distinctive aura of a BOSS in Divine Oracle.

“Whoa, a boss!” Wu Shaochen exclaimed in delight and immediately cast Insight.

[Boar King] (Iron-tier BOSS)

Level: 6
HP: 50,000
Attack: 250
Defense: 120
Speed: 30

Skill 1 – Savage Charge: Charges forward in a straight line at high speed, dealing 150% physical damage to all targets in its path and stunning them for 1 second. Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Skill 2 – Berserk: The Boar King rises up, increasing its attack and attack speed by 50% for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Skill 3 – Recovery: Triggers when HP drops below 10%. Doubles defense and restores HP to 30% over 10 seconds. Cannot move or attack during this time. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

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“I just said those wild wolves had boss-level stats, and boom—instant face slap. This is what a real BOSS looks like!”
Its stats alone were ridiculous, and the skills made it even more disgusting. Without high burst damage, this thing couldn’t be killed at all. That last skill… if you can’t take down 30% of its health within 5 minutes, then just forget about it.

“Well, no point complaining. I should be used to this by now.”
But this BOSS might be impossible for others… not necessarily for him. After all, his Poison ability could prevent healing! Clearly, this BOSS was fated to be his.

He also hadn’t forgotten his other innate talent: defeating a BOSS of equal or higher level would increase his poison stack. Each additional layer doubled the damage.

Still, he definitely couldn’t beat it right now. He needed to level up some more—at the very least, be faster and capable of taking one hit. Wu Shaochen marked the boss’s location, then headed out of the forest again. No one else would come here anytime soon. He needed to find those level 7 monsters. After all, boosting his talent was his top priority. Higher talent meant higher damage.

Back at the fork in the road, Wu Shaochen took the middle path toward the bamboo grove.

As soon as he entered, he felt the air grow damp and gloomy, with poor visibility. He moved forward cautiously. Suddenly, he saw several green snakes slithering on the bamboo, flicking their tongues at him. Goosebumps crawled across his skin. He quickly cast Insight.

[Green Snake]

Level: 3
HP: 550
Attack: 32
Defense: 12
Speed: 7

Skill – Venom: Targets hit by Green Snake attacks have a 50% chance to be poisoned, losing 2 HP per second for 30 seconds.

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“So that’s where the level 3 monsters are. No wonder I didn’t see them earlier.”
These snakes were probably going to gross out a lot of players. Most would rather fight crabs than these things. That venom skill was just nasty.
Then he suddenly thought of his own talent. Hmm… poison’s a good thing. How could he call it nasty?

He kept moving forward. Past the bamboo grove was a dense jungle. The trees were smaller but packed close together, unlike the earlier forest. The lighting remained dim. After a while, he finally saw some monsters—huge spiders crawling along the trees and ground. Holding back his disgust, he cast Insight.

[Giant Spider]

Level: 7
HP: 2500
Attack: 90
Defense: 40
Speed: 13

Skill – Web Trap: Casts a massive web in a 2-meter radius ahead, trapping targets. Trapped targets cannot move or attack for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

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“Nope, can’t deal with this.” Wu Shaochen grumbled. This path clearly wasn’t meant for him. All the monsters here seemed tailored to counter him.

Guess I’ll have to put talent upgrading on hold for now. Better go back to pig hunting, level up some more, and then come back to take down that Boar King.

And so, Wu Shaochen returned once again to the Boar Forest, beginning another round of pig slaying. With his current 16 poison damage per second, it took only about two minutes to take down a boar. Pretty efficient.
Each boar gave 20 base XP. After level 2, he only got 40% extra bonus, which meant 8 more XP. So every boar gave him 28 XP total. He’d need to kill 18 more to reach level 3.

While Wu Shaochen was grinding pigs alone in the forest, countless players were still fighting over rabbits on the grassy plains in front of the Beginner Village. Honestly, the grassland was huge, and every spawn cycle produced thousands of rabbits. But with so many players, it was still a case of too many monks and not enough meat.

Among the crowd, a group of over ten players had surrounded several rabbit spawn points, working in sync to weaken the rabbits so one haughty young man in the center could finish them off. After killing another rabbit, golden light flashed beneath the young man’s feet—he had leveled up.

“Congratulations, Young Master Huang, on leveling up!”
Everyone around him offered their congratulations. “Huang-shao must be the first in our Beginner Village to level up. I’ve been watching, and I haven’t seen anyone else flash that upgrade light.”

“Mhm.” Huang-shao nodded in satisfaction and dumped all his free stat points into Strength. With his attack power now at 22, he smirked and said, “With 22 attack, these rabbits are no problem. Should I check out the level 2 zone?”

“Don’t, Huang-shao. Some of our guys have tried that zone—the mountain goats there are brutal. We can’t handle them yet. Not unless everyone hits level 1, and we have a few full-tank builds leading the charge.”

“Damn it, this stupid game’s so damn hard. And it won’t even let us pay to win. Freakin’ annoying,” Huang-shao cursed.

After thinking for a moment, he asked, “Anyone in our group get any gear drops? Have them send it over. Let’s get me geared up first so I can push into the level 2 area. I’m sick of killing rabbits.”

“No drops yet,” someone replied. “The drop rate in this game is seriously trash. None of us have seen even one piece of gear. And the auction house has nothing listed either.”

“Shit!” Huang-shao cursed again. “Keep your eyes on the auction house. If anything shows up, snipe it instantly!”

“Yes, sir!”