Wasteland City, The True World of [ Ark ]!

"Welcome to the World of [ Ark ]!"

Upon opening his eyes, Su Chen realized that he had returned to his own home.

However, unlike his actual home, the place that he was currently situated in was in ruins. He was in a dreary wasteland and was dressed in an ultramarine mage robe.

Due to a lack of obstructions, his field of vision had thus become extremely wide.

On the streets.

Countless people wearing all kinds of clothing walked through them.

Warriors with huge shields on their backs, archers with bows on their backs.

At the same time, there were also the roars of all kinds of chimera-looking creatures.

Su Chen immediately took action. He had read countless guides and he understood what had to be done, unlike the newbies who would likely shout and gawk around in amazement at the world around them,

The Wasteland City was considered to be the starting area for newbies to live in.

Laser doors were spread out in all four corners of the street, leading to all kinds of dungeons, be they universe-themed, ancient-civilization-themed, rain-forest-themed and etcetera.

These were all places that only experienced players could explore.

For newbies, their first battlefield to conquer was the wasteland.

"It's time to set off."

Su Chen knew of the secret reward for rushing levels.

If one was able to reach level 10 within three days of playing the game, the reward that they would obtain would be 200,000 Gold Coins!

The ratio of the time in the outside world versus in-game was 1:10.

However, the ratio of Blue Star currency to in-game currency was 1:1.

In other words, upon completing the hidden achievement for rushing levels, Su Chen would obtain 200,000 Blue Star Coins in one go!

Although this sounded easy on paper...

Let it be known that despite [ Ark ]'s two month of service, the current highest level in-game was only level 57.

Reaching level 10 within three days was certainly a tall feat.

As Su Chen walked through the wasteland, he spotted all sorts of monster spawn points.

There were a large number of new players in the city.

Some were already using the stamina buffs they had gotten as a newbie reward to travel back and forth between cities to take in the sights of the apocalyptical landscape.

On the other hand, some were just like Su Chen, who had already memorized the ins and outs of the game before venturing in. They were already in a grind-mode, and they were in search of spawn points, so that they could farm up some monsters and hurriedly level up.

Similar to Su Chen, these professional players were vying for the 200,000 Gold Coin reward; unlike him however, these players were likely working in sweatshops and had already partied up to grind as efficiently as possible.

As for Su Chen, who was an individual player, he did not have any advantages over these professional players, and worse still, the only skill that was available to him was [ Fireball ].

However, through his professional skills and tireless work at analyzing the monster data available on the official website, Su Chen had already identified the most efficient mobs for him to hunt down and to level up.

They were the [ Heartless Bloodwolf ]s and the [ Mutated Vine ]s. 

Su Chen hurriedly scoured the city in search of monster spawn points.

Fortunately for him, he soon arrived at a spawn point for the [ Heartless Bloodwolf ]s. Better yet, there were also no other players present who could possibly interfere with his experience farming.

In [ Ark ]'s storyline, due to the pollution caused by the advancement of technology, the animals and plants within Wasteland City had mutated, and as a result, they had killed large swaths of the population, and had even ended up destroying the city.

Thus, the Heartless Bloodwolf that stood before Su Chen was massive, towering at two meters. It was taller than the average human.

[ Heartless Bloodwolf ]

Level: 1

HP: 150

Attack: 10-15

Defense: 8

Speed: 10

Skill: [ Bite ]

Description: A Wolf that has been corrupted by the pollution caused by the advancement of technology. It has lost all sense of rationality and feels no pain. It would relentlessly pounce and rip its prey to shreds.

Su Chen looked at the feral glow within the Heartless Bloodwolf's eyes and its razor sharp fangs drooling with saliva.

He could not help but think of the many female players who cried and complained on the official website back at the game's launch, claiming that the monsters of Wasteland City had scared them.

In stark contrast to those female players' reactions, Su Chen could not help but marvel at [ Ark ]'s ability to generate such a realistic creature. For a second, Su Chen had even thought that the wolf was real.

"Bring up the system interface."

Now that he had discovered a spawn point of his desired monster, Su Chen decided to take his time to study his own stats.

[ Player: Su Chen ]

[ Level: 1]

[ Class: Mage ]

[ HP: 200 ]

[ Mana: 150]

[ Elemental (Attack) Power: 35(+ 5) ]

[ Defense: 12(+ 2) ]

[ Speed: 10 ]

[ Equipment: Beginner's Staff, Elemental Power + 5; Beginner's Robe: Defense + 2 ]

[ Skills: Level 1 Fireball, consumes 10 mana on each cast ]

[ Casting time: 3 seconds ]

[ Level 10 Reward: Raises compatibility score and increases spell strength ] 

"My Elemental Power is already at 30 points despite being level 1?"

Su Chen was also a little surprised by what he had seen. Usually, a typical level 1 mage would only have Elemental Power of around 20 points.

However, his was 35!

Perhaps this was a result of his high compatibility score.

"The rest of my stats are not much different from normal players. The only other major difference is my skill section, I suppose."

After understanding what his character was capable of, Su Chen then made preparations to bring down the beast before him.

Usually, facing wild monsters like the Heartless Bloodwolf would be a great headache for mages and archers. After all, there was a high likelihood for them to interrupt their bow-drawing or their spell-casting.

However, since [ Mutated Vine ]s were a rare enemy to encounter, the Heartless Bloodwolf which was weak to fire was Su Chen's next best bet.

The wounds scattered across the Heartless Bloodwolf's body would result in its HP loss. However, compared to its bulky HP, this HP loss was an insignificant amount. Nevertheless, once it made contact with the fire element, a burning reaction would trigger, and the bloodwolf would enter a continuous HP loss state.

It was for this reason that Su Chen had chosen it as his prey.

With his strategy now thought out, he immediately began to cast Fireball.

Soon, a fist-sized ball of flame was rapidly formed, crashing into the Heartless Bloodwolf's body seconds later!

28!

The damage value quickly appeared above the wolf. 

Heartless Bloodwolf's aggro1 was also pulled up, and it immediately started running towards Su Chen with blood red eyes!

Su Chen, who was an expert when it came to games was well prepared for this response. He had already made the calculations beforehand, and he determined that there was a 5 second downtime at minimum between each of his [ Fireball ] casts, considering that the cooldown of [ Fireball ] was 2 seconds.

As newbies did not possess any notable movement skills to speak off, the usual approach that newbies took to fighting monsters was to take their attacks head-on, trading blows with them, whilst using health potions to regain their lost health.

Either that, or they would party up with their friends and defeat the monster via teamwork.

As for Su Chen, who was a solo player, he immediately fall backed to the skill that MOBA2 games in his previous life had taught him, kiting3!

All starting skills regardless of class possessed a slight knockback effect.

Apart from the first fireball to pull aggro, Su Chen had to use every other skill at the right time to pull off the kill unscathed.

Facing the Heartless Bloodwolf's deadly pounce, Su Chen chanted as he hurriedly sidestepped and avoided [ Bite ] by a hair's breadth!

However, he was still scratched by the bloodwolf's sharp claws and lost 2 HP.

Nevertheless, when compared to the potential 15 damage he would take from [ Bite ], this value seemed negligible.

Su Chen continuously kited the Bloodwolf around.

Had anyone passed by at this moment, their jaws would drop in amazement.

This was because Su Chen had grasped each opening extremely well.

Kiting was not a foreign concept to most players. However, using in practice was not as easy as it sounded on paper. Many players who thought themselves as gaming gods soon faced the harsh reality that kiting was much harder in [ Ark ]. For most, kiting was simply an impossible task.

...

After a few minutes of kiting, the Heartless Bloodwolf that had taken a continuous beating by Su Chen's [ Fireball ] wailed and collapsed onto the ground.

Then, it turned into a ball of light and disappeared.

An item dropped immediately after.

Su Chen walked over to pick it up.