Chapter 4: Talent Enhancement

For a full half hour, Wu Shaochen eagerly watched as the heavily wounded sea turtle slowly approached its death after he delivered the final blow with his sword. As the last drop of blood vanished, the colossal body of the turtle reluctantly collapsed to the ground. A system notification followed shortly after.

"Ding! Killed [Sea Turtle], gained 15 experience points. Bonus experience of 50% (7 points) for being 5 levels higher (ignoring fractions)."

"Ding! Talent ability triggered. Poison damage increased by 1 point, inflicting true damage of 2 points per second."

"Awesome!" Wu Shaochen exclaimed in excitement upon hearing the system notifications. He instantly gained 22 experience points, much faster than snatching a rabbit at the village entrance. The most important thing was his talent upgrade. Now, it would take half the time to defeat sea turtles.

Quickly approaching the corpse of the sea turtle, Wu Shaochen noticed two copper coins and even a piece of equipment lying on the ground. He eagerly picked them up, surprised to find equipment dropping so early on. Even though the drop rate increases by 50% for being 5 levels higher, getting equipment from the first monster was an incredible stroke of luck in "Oracle" with its abysmal drop rates.

Examining the equipment, he found a pair of shoes.

[Canvas Shoes]

Quality: Common

Movement Speed +3

Physical Defense +2

Equip Requirements: None

Not bad at all! It fits perfectly. He hurriedly put them on, increasing his speed to 8 points and defense to 8 points.

In "Oracle," equipment quality ranges from lowest to highest: Common - Iron - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Dark Gold - Platinum - Diamond - Star - Immortal - Divine - Godly - Super Godly.

Common equipment has no equip requirements, while additional attributes start appearing with Iron equipment, and additional skills start appearing on Gold and above.

Feeling slightly faster with the shoes on, Wu Shaochen continued his search for the next sea turtle, confident that these monsters were tailor-made for him. However, their numbers were not plentiful. After a while, he finally spotted a sunbathing sea turtle on the beach.

Wu Shaochen walked up to it and swung his sword at the turtle's shell before quickly turning around to run. However, he still got bitten, as it was difficult to avoid damage from the turtle without overwhelming attack speed and movement speed advantage in the early stages.

-2, -2, -2

White markers constantly appeared above the turtle's head as it struggled to chase after Wu Shaochen.

This time, the speed was noticeably faster, and in just 15 minutes, the pitiful sea turtle fell with tears in its eyes. Wu Shaochen swiftly...

Picking up the two dropped copper coins, Wu Shaochen continued his search for the next target.

In this manner, Wu Shaochen kept hunting and killing sea turtles. With the upgrade of his talent, the time it took to kill the sea turtles gradually decreased. The third one took 10 minutes, the fourth took 7 and a half minutes, and the fifth one took 6 minutes to defeat. At this moment, a system notification followed.

"Ding! Killed [Sea Turtle], gained 22 experience points. Experience bar is full. Congratulations, you have leveled up! Health +20, Mana +10, and you have obtained 5 attribute points. Please allocate them wisely."

Finally, I've leveled up. I should consider myself pretty fast now, Wu Shaochen thought to himself. Looking at the five freely allocated attribute points, he hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided to add all of them to Agility. The reason he could kill level five sea turtles was because they were slower than him. To fully utilize the advantage of his talent, increasing his speed by adding points to Agility was the right choice.

After leveling up and allocating attribute points, his stats changed: Health increased from 50 to 70 points, Mana increased from 50 to 60 points, Agility increased from 5 to 10 points, and Movement Speed increased from 8 to 13 points. The other attributes remained the same. He checked his experience points.

Experience Points: 10/300

It takes 300 experience points to level up from level 1 to level 2, which seems reasonable. It's just a matter of killing a little over ten sea turtles.

Wu Shaochen contemplated whether to continue farming sea turtles or go to other areas to fight level 6 monsters. Although farming sea turtles was more stable and the leveling speed was not slow, level 5 sea turtles no longer triggered his talent's special ability.

Let's check out other areas first. With my current Movement Speed of 13, I'm probably faster than many monsters. Maybe I'll even encounter suitable monsters to farm for passive talents. If not, I can always come back to farm sea turtles. It won't waste much time anyway.

With this in mind, Wu Shaochen turned around and started heading back. He had reached the end here; going forward would lead to the sea. He could only go back. Returning to the three-way intersection, Wu Shaochen directly headed towards the forest on the left. The visibility in the bamboo forest ahead was poor, making it easy to be ambushed. Monsters above level 5 would actively attack, and with his current small build, he definitely couldn't withstand them.

The forest, on the other hand, had decent lighting because the trees were spaced apart. Wu Shaochen cautiously walked through it. Suddenly, a pitch-black wild boar emerged from behind a tree up ahead. Its two fangs gleamed, and its eyes were fixed on Wu Shaochen. It scraped its front hooves on the ground before charging directly at him at an incredible speed.

"Damn, no sportsmanship!" Wu Shaochen exclaimed in surprise. Just as the wild boar was about to crash into him, he narrowly dodged to the side. The boar grazed Wu Shaochen's body and continued to charge past him

The corner of his clothes rushed past and directly collided with a tree in front, causing stars to appear above its head, indicating dizziness.

Wu Shaochen patted his chest, relieved that he had allocated all his points to Agility just now. Otherwise, he would have definitely been unable to dodge that attack. He quickly used the skill "Insight".

[Wild Boar]

Level: 6

Health: 2000

Physical Attack: 70

Physical Defense: 30

Speed: 11

Skill: Savage Charge - Charges forward in a straight line at an extremely fast speed, dealing 150% physical damage to targets in its path and stunning them for one second. Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Wu Shaochen smirked. Is this what a level 6 monster is like? The Oracle is as unreliable as ever. Luckily, I managed to dodge just now. If I had been hit, it would have been a free trip back to town.

Should I take it on? Or should I go back to bullying the little sea turtles? Wu Shaochen was torn. It was possible to fight the wild boar. Its attack was 70, and he had 70 health and 8 defense. He could withstand a few normal attacks, and his movement speed wasn't slower. He could create distance. However, the problem lay with the boar's skill. Getting hit by it would send him back home. Wu Shaochen wasn't confident in dodging it every time. Just now, the boar was a bit far from him, giving him time to react. If it happened while he was attacking, he would be done for.

Damn it, let's go for it. Now, my talent's poison can deal 6 damage per second. Killing a wild boar would take a little over five minutes. This risk is worth taking.

With this in mind, Wu Shaochen charged at the wild boar, which had just used its skill and had a 10-second cooldown. There was a chance of being hit if he wasn't careful, but he managed to land a sword strike on the boar's back.

-1 (Doesn't break through defense, forced damage)

-6 (Poison damage)

The wild boar wasn't easy to mess with. It raised its fangs.

-62

Wu Shaochen quickly backed away. At this moment, he suddenly realized a serious problem he had overlooked - his healing couldn't keep up. Leaving the battle would require 10 seconds, which meant that he could only regain 50 health in the remaining 50 seconds. To withstand the boar's counterattacks, his health needed to be above 63. If he waited for his health to recover to 63 before going in for another strike, there would be 13 seconds during which the boar wouldn't be affected by poison. After leaving the battle, the boar would recover 1% health per second. That meant there would be 3 seconds during which the boar could recover 60 health. The time it would take to kill it would be significantly prolonged.

Sigh, as expected, it's not so easy to kill a level 6 monster. But since I've started, I can only see it through to the end.