Level grinding

Once Eisen's temper cooled down enough for him to focus, he continued hunting wolves.

He easily recognized the attack patterns of the wolves after six deaths against them, he simply wasn't able to evade every single attack when he was surrounded by multiple attackers.

While Eisen was a conceited bastard, he wasn't completely stupid.

Eisen continued harboring murderous thoughts and swore that once he was stronger, he would kill every last player and NPC that offended him.

Firstly, he had to focus on the task at hand.

He swiftly rolled under a swipe of the wolf's claws. Using the same strategy as his first kill, he lured the wolf away from their pack, and began slashing and kiting the mob.

His Agility was about the same as the wolf's, which meant that the wolf was slightly faster than he was; Gigantomachia had made most bipedal creatures slower than quadrupedal beasts. Although this natural disadvantage could be overcome with Skills and overwhelming stats, Eisen didn't possess either.

However, the wolf slowed down to attack and the lunge attacks had a predictable attack pattern. As long as he wasn't directly in front of the wolf, he was never in any danger.

'Power Strike!'

Eisen's sword became a streak of light, slashing into the wolf's flank.

[-16]

The rest of the wolf's health bar disappeared. The beast dropped onto the ground, before disintegrating into shards of glittering light.

Learning from his mistake, Eisen picked up the drops: a wolf pelt, as well as some coins.

[Wolf Pelt lv.1 - Trash]

[The pelt of a wolf, found in Mudbrick Town's outer forest. Can be used for Crafting.]

Altogether, Eisen estimated that if he sold the pelt, he would earn 5 coppers.

"This is outrageously slow!" he impatiently exclaimed. His EXP bar had once again barely increased. However, he couldn't do anything but complain to nobody.

The prospect of earning a fortune appealed to him greatly, so he decided to persist.

He lured another wolf away from their pack, and continued grinding.

After another three hours, he had finally levelled up once.

[You have levelled up! Gained 4 free stat points and 10 free skill mastery points.]

Eisen smiled broadly to himself. 'Finally, some progress,' he excitedly thought.

He invested all his points into Dexterity; he had noticed that his swordsmanship was clumsy and he had loose control over his body. Dexterity would allow him to be more precise and deal critical hits more often. Not only that, but his higher Dexterity would also increase his Attack Speed.

Now, his stats looked like this:

[stats: Strength 4, Dexterity 5, Power 1, Casting 1, Agility 3, Stamina 1, Mana 1, Vitality 2]

Additionally, he put all of his skill mastery points into his only passive skill, Basic Weapons Training. He learned from the Gigantomachia forums that at higher levels, Basic Weapons Training allowed you to pick a specialization, such as swordsmanship or quarterstaff training. Combined with the mastery points he had obtained naturally by repeatedly using melee weapons, he had 23 points in total.

[Basic Weapons Training lv. 1]

[23/100 Mastery]

[+5% Attack Speed with melee weapons, +5% Damage with melee weapons]

[Training has allowed your body to wield weapons more fluidly and naturally. Maybe one day, you will reach true mastery!]

'Progress sure feels good,' he smiled. Now he understood why some younger people liked to play video games all the time.

He continued onwards, this time going deeper into the woods. The level-up had made him a little more confident.

However, he wasn't completely stupid.

Eisen continued luring monsters individually away from their packs, so they couldn't take advantage of their pack tactics when fighting him.

While his pride felt that this was a cheap and scummy way to fight, they were only monsters. Besides, making money was more important; he would set aside his pride.

Suddenly, he heard several ominous howls echo throughout the woods.

'What was that?' he wondered curiously. He shrugged, not caring very much, and continued picking up the drops of his most recent kill.

During his time levelling up, he had obtained two pieces of Trash-ranked equipment; a pair of boots and a leather breastplate.

The equipment wasn't very good, but it was better than nothing.

Following the howling, Eisen heard several people yelling and screaming.

He emerged from the brush, and noticed a party of adventurers-- different players than before --running through the main clearing in the forest. They seemed panicked and didn't care about the waves of wolves whose aggro they had attracted.

After a moment, Eisen could see what was pursuing them. A small pack of five pitch-black direwolves chased after the players.

The direwolves were much faster than the party, and would quickly catch them. Apparently, they realized this as well, and turned around and began putting up a desperate struggle.

The mage swiftly cast Magic Missile. Several runes floated before his open hand, before several bolts of concussive force blasted into the direwolf leading the charge. A yelp was accompanied with abysmally low damage numbers.

[-6, -5, -6]

Only 17 damage was nothing to the direwolf.

[Direwolf lv. 5 - Elite]

[hp: 483/500]

The Arcane Apprentice paled, before desperately casting Magic Missile again. Three bluish bolts slammed into another direwolf, dealing similarly pathetic damage. However, the knockback effect gave the Guardian some breathing room.

Suddenly, three direwolves flanked the party. Shadows trailed from their claws and fangs as they lunged towards the healer.

[-45, -43, -47]

The healer, who was a higher level than Eisen, survived the onslaught from the direwolves' Skills. However, their health dropped into the red zone.

Black, shadowy smoke flowed from the Deacon's wounds. 'Some kind of status effect?' Eisen mused.

Another attack immediately killed the healer. After the healer died, the direwolves immediately shredded the rest of the party.

Eisen was completely certain that he wasn't a match for the direwolves. He immediately kept a distance of at least 50 meters between him and the Elite monsters.

After fifteen minutes, the direwolves left the area and continued patrolling the woods.

However, the players' drops hadn't de-spawned. As soon as he was certain that the direwolves had left, Eisen scrambled to take the equipment from the ground.

Each player dropped at least one piece of equipment, and all of their equipment drops were Trash- and Common-ranked. There were several duplicate pieces of equipment, but free stuff was still free stuff. In total, he obtained 2 pieces of Common equipment and 4 pieces of Trash equipment.

Among the equipment, there was 2 pairs of boots, 1 pair of leggings, 1 chest equipment, 2 helmets, and 1 ring. Unfortunately, none of the players dropped any weapons.

Eisen swapped out his boots and breastplate for better equipment, and equipped the leggings, ring, and one of the helmets. He didn't like how the helmet looked, and turned off the setting for helmet-visibility.

Altogether, his equipment bonuses gave his stats a significant boost:

[stats: Strength 4 (+4), Dexterity 5 (+1), Power 1, Casting 1, Agility 3 (+1), Stamina 1 (+1), Mana 1 (+1), Vitality 2 (+6)]

Due to this, his health had soared.

[health: 185/185]

Not only that, but he was almost level 2 after several hours of grinding.

"That direwolf party-wipe sure was profitable," Eisen happily chuckled, thinking about how much money he could make by selling his 4 extra pieces of equipment.

Suddenly, something incredibly rare happened. Eisen had an idea.