Chapter 2

"1 minute and 30 seconds remaining until the game starts. Please name your game character."

Hearing the system prompt again, Wu Shaochen shook his head to clear his thoughts. After all, this was a groundbreaking game with many aspects beyond his understanding. Steadying his mind, he said, "Chen Feng."

"Name successfully created. The game will use your original appearance, which cannot be altered. You may purchase masks or veils from the in-game store to conceal your face if desired. To help players quickly adapt, pain sensitivity will be set at 5% initially. Every ten levels, the system will automatically increase the pain sensitivity by 5%. Other senses will match those of the real world.

Upon entering the game, the system will randomly generate a lifelong talent based on each player's characteristics. Each talent is unique, so please make good use of it and choose a profession that complements your talent as much as possible."

"Alright, enjoy the game! The game is about to start...

10

9

...

3...2...1"

As soon as the countdown ended, a flash of light occurred, and Wu Shaochen found himself standing in the beginner village. White light flashed around him as more players appeared, quickly crowding the area.

"WTF, is this really a game?"

"Damn, this is way too realistic."

"This feels exactly like the real world."

"Hey, who the hell touched my butt?"

"Uh, sorry about that. I was just testing the realism. I thought I was dreaming. It's truly 100% realistic."

"Damn, then let me grab you to see if it's real too!"

"No, please don't! I've already verified it, it's really real!"

The countless noisy voices around him made Wu Shaochen almost unable to distinguish whether this was reality or the game.

"Welcome to Oracle. You have spawned in beginner village number 8365. The system has gifted you a starter pack, and your talent has been generated. Your talent is [Source of Poison]. Please check your character panel for details."

"Source of Poison? What the heck? How does someone as upright as me end up with a poison-related talent?" Wu Shaochen was baffled, knowing that everyone's talent was determined by their own attributes. He couldn't figure out how he was related to poison.

Rewinding a bit, in reality, as Wu Shaochen's consciousness entered the game, his skin began to pale, and toxins gradually infiltrated his blood. A while later, when the game helmet conducted a blood sample test, it detected the presence of toxins. Through this blood sampling, the helmet absorbed most of the toxins from Wu Shaochen's body.

"Open character panel," Wu Shaochen thought.

Name: Chen Feng

Level: 0

Health: 50

Mana: 50

Physical Attack: 10

Magic Attack: 10

Physical Defense: 5

Magic Defense: 5

Movement Speed: 5

Experience: 0/100

Strength: 5 (affects Physical Attack, 1 point of Strength = 2 points of Physical Attack)

Intelligence: 5 (affects Magic Attack, 1 point of Intelligence = 2 points of Magic Attack)

Constitution: 5 (affects Health Points, 1 point of Constitution = 10 Health Points)

Root: 5 (affects Defense, 1 point of Root = 1 point of Physical Defense and 1 point of Magic Defense)

Spirit: 5 (affects Mana Points, 1 point of Spirit = 10 Mana Points)

Agility: 5 (affects Movement Speed and Attack Speed, 1 point of Agility = 1 point of Movement Speed and 0.2% Attack Speed)

All attributes for newbies start at 5. This setup is very fair unless there are talents that add attributes.

Skills: Insight Technique (able to view information on monsters up to 10 levels higher than oneself)

Talent: Source of Venom: Basic attacks or melee skills inflict Venom on the target (ranged attacks cannot trigger). Deals 1 point of true damage per second, stackable up to one layer for 60 seconds. Targets cannot heal during the poisoning period. Characteristics: Each kill of a target 5 levels higher than oneself increases toxin damage by one point. Each kill of a BOSS not lower than one's realm level increases toxin stackable layers by one (each BOSS of each realm can only trigger once).

Wu Shaochen stared blankly at his talent. Although this talent initially felt like garbage, after seeing its characteristics, Wu Shaochen felt his heart beating uncontrollably. Based on his understanding of games, he could sense how terrifying this talent could become once it accumulated.

"I feel like I'm about to take off! Houses, cars, money, and girls are all waving at me." At this moment, he no longer worried about whether he was related to poison or not. He only knew that this talent was really good...

Quickly opening the backpack, he unpacked the newbie gift pack, revealing as expected a wooden sword and a piece of cloth.

Wooden Sword: Physical Attack +2 (newbie equipment)

Cloth: Physical Defense +1 (newbie equipment)

Better than nothing, he immediately put them on, increasing his attack to 12 and defense to 6.

Looking around at the noisy crowd and the constant appearance of white light, Wu Shaochen conservatively estimated that there were nearly ten thousand people in this newbie village alone. According to official announcements, there were ten thousand newbie villages just in Huaxia. If every newbie village was like this, it meant that over a billion players had joined the game right after its launch in Huaxia alone. Terrifying indeed...

Finally squeezing out of the crowd to find an NPC and see if there were any quests, Wu Shaochen discovered that the dozen or so NPCs in the village were completely surrounded by players, both inside and out.

"Uh, forget it. Even if there are quests early on, the rewards won't be high. It's better not to waste time. Hunting monsters outside seems more promising," Wu Shaochen muttered to himself.

Walking towards the village exit led to a grassland where many rabbits were hopping around. The entire grassland was now crowded with players, and occasional flashes of white light indicated player deaths.

"Can you really kill these cute bunnies?" Wu Shaochen exclaimed in surprise as he approached one rabbit and used Insight Technique.

"Little White Rabbit"

Level: 1

Health: 100

Physical Attack: 12

Physical Defense: 7

Speed: 6

Skills: None

After glancing at the attributes of the Little White Rabbit in front of him and then at his own attributes, Wu Shaochen twitched his mouth. Finally, he understood why people were dying. Without teaming up, ordinary players couldn't even defeat the lowest-level rabbit.

Before reaching level ten and changing professions, players' attributes were basically the same. With a wooden sword giving 12 attack points and cloth armor adding only 6 defense points, it meant dealing about 5 damage per hit to the rabbit while taking 6 damage in return. The problem was the rabbit had 100 health points while players only had 50. Moreover, in the early stages, attack speed was the same for everyone. Essentially, it was a situation where you hit it once, it scratched you back once, and the inevitable outcome was obvious. The most annoying part was that the rabbit's speed was slightly faster than the player's, meaning you couldn't even escape after realizing you couldn't win. Was this game for real?

"This game's design is crap. Damn it, I've been killed by rabbits twice already. Can you believe it?" Wu Shaochen muttered.

"I'm even worse off. I was one of the first to come out and I've died three times already. After playing games for so many years, this is the first time I've found I can't even beat a rabbit. Shameful!"

Despite the high death count, the sheer number of players meant that often, several players would attack a single rabbit as soon as it respawned. In the absence of teams, experience points were awarded to the player who made the final hit, and as for dropped items, it was a matter of who was quickest. So far, despite many rabbit deaths, only the occasional copper coin or rabbit fur had been seen to drop—no equipment. The drop rates in Oracle were truly dismal.

"Damn it, killing one rabbit only gives 1 experience point. It took me forever just to catch one. How long will it take to kill a hundred?" someone complained.

Wu Shaochen's mouth twitched. Was this game really this hard?

Looking at the bustling players around him, he felt it was impossible to compete here. The rabbit he had just seen was already being surrounded and attacked by a group of people. Forget it, he thought to himself, let's find another place to look around.