From beginner to slightly stronger

Time in this game is dilated, about 6 hours of real-time can be stretched out into 24 hours in-game. Thanks to this technology, players can spend what seems like days at a time in game without it affecting their health too much.

And so, they spent the next hour killing boars. It didn't take nearly as long as Kane thought it would.

By the time they'd completed their second boar quest, Kane had actually reached level 11 instead!

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[Kane: Aporter | Affiliation-NA | level-11 | Gold-700 | Platinum-0]

[Hp-210/210, Mp-130/130, Xp-3/105] [Skill points: 0]

[Stats: Dmg-15(10), Def-5(10), Md-10] | {Hp Regen- +20, Mp Regen- +35 | Per Minute}

[Skills: Beginner- {Aport-1 | Self Aport-1}]

[Items: Beginner- *Iron Chestplate +10 Def | *Iron Shortsword +10 Atk | *Rabbit Ears +10% Detect]

[Party: Reaper, Jol]

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Although he was greatly pleased with his progress, the condition of giving all quest rewards and item drops to the pair, along with helping them, seemed a bit much.

'At least they let me keep the gold drops from the boars themselves,' Kane thought to himself with a hung head.

The biggest thing he missed out on because of this deal was the Boar Hoof item, which raises stamina by 15%. But since he likely wouldn't have killed enough to get it on his own, Kane kept his mouth shut.

"Well Kane, we've kept our end of the deal, feel like helping us kill some wolves?"

"Not particularly, but I'm a man of my word." He let out a sigh and followed them back into town.

Although Kane got plenty of exercise in real life, fighting almost non-stop for 8 hours was just too much. He'd been pushing through the fatigue since his 60th rabbit, so while his motivation was still in full gear, he was very tired.

Even his 'full gear' motivation was sapped as he watched the two take the rewards for the second boar quest for themselves, he still couldn't complain though.

'Damned Jol, he just had to suggest milking me for all I'm worth.'

Selecting the Shadow Wolf quest, the group re-allocated their xp and drop ratio back to normal and headed for the Shadow Ravine.

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The Shadow Ravine was a large, deep crack in the land, stretching out for several miles. The entrance to it was only a foot or two deeper than the surrounding forest, but the further you walked down its slope, the more dangerous the monsters became.

Passing a few Boulder Slimes (A more 'magey' alternative to the rabbits), the surrounding stone walls slowly grew taller, until after several minutes of walking they reached an area where the lower walls of the ravine stretched out in a donut shape, creating a little clearing.

Kane could hear the echoes becoming more and more delayed as the space widened, along with some other things.

"I'm guessing we're here?"

"Seems like it," Jol replied calmly, while Reaper looked around the shadowy clearing for anything suspicious.

"I get they're really good at hiding, but are we sure they're actually here? I'm not finding anything." Reaper announced while picking up a small rock and looking under it.

Kane smiled menacingly, "Oh they're here all right, they surrounded us a while ago."

Reaper and Jol both jumped back while readying their spells and weapons. "Why couldn't you tell us sooner?" Jole asked impatiently.

"I'm just messing with you guys!" Kane burst out laughing.

Reaper and Jol both relaxed a little.

"Nah, that was a lie, they have us completely surrounded right now."

Jol kept his weapon out just in case, while Reaper more hesitantly disabled his spell.

"Stop messing with us, are they here or not??"

"They are..."

Reaper readied his spell rapidly.

"... not."

Reaper's eyebrow twitched, "Listen pal-"

Before either of them could tell Kane off, he pulled his sword out as one of the Shadow Wolves quickly made their move. Teleporting behind Jol, he slashed at the wolf's head just before it could reach him.

[Shadow Wolf: Stealth | Lvl 6 | 41/60 Hp | 6 Def]

While the wolves have minimal defense, making them fast to kill, they did a lot of damage to low-level players and were very hard to detect.

Jol was startled by the sudden surprise attack as 4 other wolves jumped out all at once.

Kane began swiftly teleporting around the battlefield laughing horribly as he slashed, stabbed, and cut everything in his way.

Reaper was struggling to keep up, but still managed to launch off some fireballs, doing severe damage as the initial impact ignored half of their already pathetic defense, while the remaining burn effects quickly killed off stragglers.

Although the wolves' tactic would usually be very effective, they weren't expecting one of the three elves to counter half of their group in a split second.

The ambushers were somehow the ones caught off guard.

Kane took a slash from one of the Shadow Wolves, who was moving in just a way that the echoes from the battle hid its approach. Kane's health immediately dropped from 210 to 105.

Teleporting behind the wolf the moment he felt claws enter his back, Kane slashed it repeatedly, the struggling wolf unable to turn around in time to prevent its demise.

Reaper ended the battle with a well-placed fireball just as Kane's mana began bottoming out.

This was a good lesson for Kane, before this and the boars he was confident he'd be able to solo them and wanted to bring a healer along simply for ensurance.

But a single hit from the wolf halved his health, and he nearly ran out of mana facing them even with two companions. Had he trusted his feelings instead of his brain, he'd be dead.

Jol quickly began healing everyone up, as a warm sensation spread throughout his body, Kane could feel his hp rise back up to 145.

A fun little fact about healing magic is that increasing your magic damage actually raises how many points of health you heal.

Kane tried raising his magic damage a bit after learning this, hoping it would affect some of his skills. While it unfortunately didn't affect his teleporting, the range of Aport was now 60 feet instead of 50.

Kane wasn't sure how useful this would be, but he figured it'd be better to have his magic damage built up ahead of time for when he gets an attack skill.

"While your jokes were horribly inappropriate for the situation, I'll at least thank you for not being full of it when you said we'd need you for this." Jol was stretching his arms while he said this.

"I told you, I'm a man of my word. Let's go back to town and restart the quest, shall we?"

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Arriving in the center of the spawn town, Reaper and Jol began happily taking all the gold for themselves. After a little bit of pleading, the two decided Kane could take the first rare item that drops.

Although Kane still pined for the Boars Hoof, he would have to make do with this.

And so the group left town to do the quest all over again, however, this time they weren't alone...

Making their way through the forest, Kane could hear 5 footsteps trailing behind them, his friend's beings none the wiser.

Entering the ravine, Kane decided to tell the two.

"I'm about the say something important, don't show any reaction whatsoever, we don't want to look suspicious."

The two looked confused but did exactly as Kane said.

"Good, we're being followed by 5 people, and I have the feeling it's not just another hunting party."

Reaper looked bewildered but controlled his reaction. Jol quietly spoke back, "I'm guessing your plan is to lead them to the Shadow Wolves, since we can react to them and they can't?"

"Bingo, if the wolves take as long to move as last time, this might work. The moment I clap my hands we're going to move ahead. Hopefully the group will get caught up in the wolves ambush while they tail us."

"Good idea, there should be a fair bit of distance between the wolves and whatever monstrosity comes next. We just swoop in and finish off whoever's left in their battle."

Kane and Jol gave a very small nod to each other while Reaper had a greedy look on his face.

"I doubt these guys are keen enough to pick up on us suddenly going silent, but just in case, go back to loudly talking about stupid things," Jol whispered.

After Reaper gave a loud and lengthy monologue on which movie star has the best breasts, they arrived at the location of the wolves.

"I'm guessing they're planning on finishing us off after our fight with the wolves," Reaper suggested.

"You're probably right, I can hear them readying their weapons... I can also hear the wolves coming out. We need an excuse to sit here and let all the wolves come out, while still making it look like we're actually going to the next zone." Thankfully, Jol was quick on the uptake.

"Hold on guys, I need to swap out some armor." He proclaimed loudly.

After a few moments of this, the wolves had sufficiently come out.

Kane clapped his hands together, "C'mon guys, get movin'! We're losing daylight here."

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One of the players stalking them became confused and turned to their leader, "They're going further in? Are they stupid?"

The leader, an elf with curly dark hair, snorted in amusement. "Apparently so, let's go kill them before they reach their destination."

The group had spent the entire day doing non-stop quests, although having to split all their xp meant they were only levels 5-8, they had gotten plenty of gold.

All of them were decked out in full iron gear, with the leader carrying a steel sword.

Noticing the group they were following had picked up their pace, they began closing the distance even faster than before.

In their urgency to catch up, the group seemed to forget about the wolves, they themselves had not faced them before and didn't understand just to what extent they stayed hidden.

Simply looking around and not seeing anything, they decided it was safe to proceed.

"So far so good, those morons haven't noticed us yet." One of the 5 smirked, the others giving a devious chuckle.

Kane could naturally hear everything they were saying thanks to how much the ravine amplified noise.

He was both annoyed and amused at these people calling them idiots while completely falling for their trap, he couldn't wait to spew his own venom at them.

"Let's kill these idiots and go get some booz-," before the leader could finish his sentence, a slender black crystalline wolf had tackled him out of nowhere, taking away an entire third of his health.

The rest of the group turned to help their leader, only to be stopped as another four lept out from the shadowy clearing.

Further down the ravine, intense laughter could be heard from the ones they had been planning to kill.

"Those bastards set us up!" The enraged leader shouted, promptly being bitten by another wolf.

Unlike Kane's group, the wolves' surprise attack was very much successful this time.

Finally killing the last wolf, there were still 4 people remaining, though all of them were very low on health.

The group could hear footsteps slowly approaching them over the sound of their heavy breathing.

As the bandit group readied themselves to meet their enemy, a fireball flew past, instantly taking out the one Jol had identified as the group's healer.

Now the only method of regenerating health this bandit group had was time, which they were very soon about to run out of.

The silver-haired elf walked at the front of the group with both arms raised and a smile on his face, his otherworldly blue eyes seeming to stare off into nothing.

"Welcome friends! So generous of you absolute f*cking buffoons to donate your items to us, did you dumbasses really think we wouldn't notice you?? This ravine goes in a straight line for christ's sake."

"Quit your trash talk, your trap might've worked but you're still gonna die here, kid."

The man continued approaching the group, undeterred.

"Bold, verrrry bold. I hope you don't think you're going to be the ones to do it. Who am I kidding, thinking's clearly the last thing you guys do."

As the leader of the bandits began walking towards him, the silver-haired man let out a sigh and clapped.

"You just continue to impress me." His voice sounding both powerful and disappointed.

At that very moment, a barrage of fireballs launched out from behind the man, instantly killing one of them while bringing the other to the cusp of death.

Before the leader could even react, the silver-haired man in front of him vanished as he was quickly met with a black screen and a prompt to respawn.

Hysterical laughter was the last thing he heard as his team was wiped out without mercy.

'Goddamnit, maybe he has a point... asshole,' he sighed to himself, opening his eyes in the village center, steel sword nowhere to be found.