Chapter 4
Grid kept on hunting the rabbits until he reached level two. He took down a grey rabbit, the 21st rabbit he had just hunted—the last of the seventh group. After the deed was done, Grid finally took a look at his notifications tab...
[You have defeated a black rabbit.]
[You have acquired 1 bronze coin.]
[You have acquired rabbit's meat.]
[5 experience has been acquired.]
[Your level has risen.]
[10 stat points have been acquired.]
[You have defeated a grey rabbit.]
[You have acquired 1 bronze coin.]
[You have acquired rabbit's meat.]
[5 experience has been acquired.]
'Now let's hunt the deers.'
Now that Grid had taken his revenge on the rabbits, he was thinking of hunting the deer. However, before he could go to hunt them, an unexpected situation appeared in front of him.
[A total of 7 groups of rabbits were hunted by you in 15 minutes.]
[A 'hidden condition' was cleared!]
[A 'hidden event' would be triggered!]
[The hidden field boss 'Silver Rabbit' has appeared!]
[The elite monster 'White Elite Rabbit' has appeared.]
[The elite monster 'Black Elite Rabbit' has appeared.]
[The elite monster 'Grey Elite Rabbit' has appeared.]
"Th-this... This is a jackpot! Kuhahaha...!!"
Grid was flabbergasted but his happiness increased at the thought of rewards he would get after defeating these hidden beginner monsters. He didn't know something like hidden beginner field bosses and elite beginner monsters even existed in Satisfy. He had never encountered them, nor did he hear anything about them from his guild-mates or even friends like Kraugel—who had godly control or close to it.
'Perhaps Kraugel may have encountered this situation, but he never told anyone?'
Grid didn't know that the difficulty and requirements for clearing this hidden condition and triggering the hidden event were very hard. It was near impossible for a user to trigger this kind of event in Satisfy since it required a level 1 player to hunt at least 20 rabbits under 15 minutes of the period. Grid had even killed one extra rabbit in that period; he finished all 7 groups of rabbits. So he naturally passed the requirements for the hidden event to appear.
While setting up the mechanism for this hidden event, the S.A. Group had implemented a safety function as well which ensured that the user who awakened the hidden field boss would get a fair chance to acquire the rewards. A proper showdown between the hidden field boss and the user, that is. The hidden field boss would only appear after the user finished off the 7th group of rabbits. It was done so the user wouldn't get distracted while fighting the last rabbit of the group. As the hidden condition was a setup for rewarding the user who pulled off a very hard task, a chance to acquire the reward must also be given. A field boss monster appearing suddenly out of nowhere and killing the user in a confused state—would surely not be a pleasant reward to anyone for clearing a 'hidden condition' that had a difficulty close to impossible.
'Let's just invest the stat points first. Increase agility by 6 and strength by 4 points. Let both of these reach 10 points first.'
[Your agility has risen.]×6
...
[Your strength has risen.]×4
It was the ideal stat distribution to increase the speed of hunting for Grid. Currently, since he had control beyond godly, he could do miracles with some extra stat points in agility. As for the strength, he needed to invest some points in it; otherwise, he would lack proper physical attack power to hunt down the monsters in front of him.
Although the basic stats of beginners were so low that it was easy to feel strong with a small investment of stat points, the fact was—the lower the level, the lower the power of the stats was. Meaning the effects provided by the stats at lower levels were significantly lesser than after the 'stats awakening'. The concept of 'stats awakening' increased the effects of 4 basic stats whenever a user reached level 100 and every 100 levels gained after that.
Grid was now ready to hunt the hidden field boss and its minions who had appeared suddenly.
The silver rabbit, who was about 2.5 times bigger than normal rabbits and had silver hairs, sent his minions first to defeat and kill Grid.
The three minions followed the same pattern of attacking as the previous rabbit groups that Grid had dealt with, but they were stronger than normal rabbits. Compared to normal rabbits, they were about 1.5 times bigger in overall size, had 3 times of health, and had twice as much strength and speed.
All three elite rabbits moved simultaneously toward Grid to attack him. Since their attack pattern and skills were the same as normal rabbits, although a bit stronger, Grid still followed his previous style against them.
Grid moved to a side by using the footwork of Link to avoid the grey elite rabbit's headbutt. He then used Drop's footwork to move half a step ahead and played out the vertical slash that he had prepared for the white elite rabbit instantly on its head to prevent it from biting and stunning it for 10 seconds simultaneously due to some brain damage.
Ptaak!
[White Elite Rabbit has been stunned for 10 seconds due to brain damage.]
The white elite rabbit was hit by the wooden sword and fell to the ground. Although Grid couldn't kill it with a strike as he did with the normal rabbits, nonetheless, he still took more than half of its health and stunned it for 10 seconds.
Just after, the black elite rabbit's kick aimed at Grid's face was swept away by Grid's counterattack who had changed his movements according to Revolve's footwork.
Ptaak!
[Black Elite Rabbit has been stunned for 5 seconds due to your counterattack.]
The black elite rabbit fell to the ground in a half-dead state 2 meters away from Grid. Its half-health was taken by Grid's counterattack. Meanwhile, the grey elite rabbit who had just returned to headbutt Grid found itself falling prey to the horizontal slash that had accumulated power from the footwork of Revolve just earlier. It was hit hard in the neck and collapsed due to the critical hit.
Ptaak!
[Critical hit!]
[You have defeated the Grey Elite Rabbit.]
[You have acquired 3 bronze coins.]
[You have acquired elite rabbit's meat.]
[10 experience has been acquired.]
Just then, the silver rabbit attacked Grid with a headbutt. However, Grid avoided the attack with a narrow escape. Although the silver rabbit, who had 10 times health, thrice the strength & agility, and all three skills of normal rabbits, was stronger than Grid stat-wise and had enough movement speed to beat him, it had low intelligence nonetheless. It couldn't catch up to Grid who had gone to the black elite rabbit to kill it. Grid succeeded and outwitted the silver rabbit at every turn.
Ptaak!
[You have defeated the Black Elite Rabbit.]
[You have acquired 3 bronze coins.]
[You have acquired elite rabbit's meat.]
[10 experience has been acquired.]
With his godly control and years of experience in battles, Grid could easily predict and avoid the attacks of the silver rabbit. The silver rabbit couldn't do anything about Grid who killed its last minion—the white elite rabbit.
Ptaak!
[You have defeated the White Elite Rabbit.]
[You have acquired 3 bronze coins.]
[You have acquired elite rabbit's meat.]
[10 experience has been acquired.]
Now only the silver rabbit, the hidden field boss remained, all its minions dead. The silver rabbit fell into a berserk state and started attacking Grid in a frenzy. However, Grid avoided most of its attacks and aimed at its critical points, such as the heart & neck. The monster was beaten passively and finally killed by Grid with the 7th strike.
Ptaak!
[Critical hit!]
[You have defeated the Silver Rabbit.]
[You have acquired 10 bronze coins.]
[You have acquired the Silver Rabbit's Meat.]
[You have acquired the Beginner's Deluxe Boots.]
[50 experience has been acquired.]
[Your mastery and understanding of swordsmanship exceed your current level.]
[The normal skill 'Sword Mastery' has been acquired.]
[Your understanding and execution of vertical & horizontal slashes have surpassed the required criteria.]
[The rare skill 'Vertical Slash' has been generated.]
[The rare skill 'Horizontal Slash' has been generated.]
"Kuhahaha...!! This is really a jackpot."
Grid was amazed at the amount of rewards he acquired after defeating the hidden field boss.
'I have never heard of such rewards for the beginners. Let's take an extensive look at the things I have acquired, but retreat to a safe place first before doing that.'
After defeating the hidden field boss, Grid finally retreated to a safe place to take a look at his status and the rewards he had acquired.
***
Meanwhile at Satisfy's Operations Office—
[User Grid has cleared the hidden event 'HEFB01'.]—Morpheus reported.
"Hahahaha... interesting, very very interesting."—Said Lim Cheolho in happiness at the thought that someone truly managed to clear a hidden condition of very hard difficulty that was supposed to be a 'near impossible task'.
HIDDEN EVENTS FOR BEGINNERS or HEFB for short—was a series of hidden events designed for beginners in Satisfy by the S.A. Group. The hidden conditions to trigger them were nearly impossible for normal users. They were specifically designed for the monsters above geniuses, the absolute masters on earth who could control the weapons as their limbs or even beyond that categorization. However, those masters didn't play Satify and only focused on their art style, the extreme concentration and perseveration due to which they reached the pinnacle of their art form.
The hidden events of the series could only be triggered by the 'Beginner' class users of 'Level 1 ~ Level 10'. Each hidden event had its own set of requirements or 'hidden conditions' through which it could be triggered. The hidden conditions were—for a beginner user of 'equal to or below a certain level' to defeat a 'certain number' of beginner monsters under a 'certain period' of time. During the hunt of those certain number of monsters, If the user would level up and exceed the required level unless he invested stats points acquired from the level up, he would be considered eligible to trigger the hidden event.
The rewards for defeating the hidden field bosses depended on the type of boss the user defeated. However, since the hidden event was a setup for rewarding the beginners who had immense potential, it rewarded them with aspects where they lacked the most. The beginners' stats were very low and they also lacked decent equipment or items at the beginning of the game. That's why they were rewarded according to their necessity with one beginner's deluxe set item or deluxe weapon and the boss monster's meat that increased one of the four basic stats by a certain amount.
"Wouldn't it cause an imbalance in the game? After all, it's about a beginner using rare-rated equipment and an elixir-type item from the very beginning of the game, perhaps more in the future... Wouldn't he just topple all the users as he likes?"—asked Yoon Nahee presenting her doubts in front of everyone.
"Since the HEFB was designed to reward worthy users, and he also cleared that nearly impossible scenario himself, he earned those rewards righteously. He deserves those rewards. We can't do anything to a person who achieved something through a mechanism we designed, that would be the epitome of unfairness."—Replied Lim Cheolho to clear things up.
"According to the background check, in reality, he is a normal person with no outstanding traits. He does labor jobs for a living. He was never great in his school, whether it was in study or sports. He doesn't even have an athletic body let alone a physique similar to a master of swordsmanship. How can this person be a master and have the potential to become an absolute with such a pathetic background? Is something wrong with Satisfy and Morpheus... Perhaps he is someone sent by rival companies with malicious intentions?"—asked Yoon Sangmin who had difficulty understanding this amazing yet suspicious situation.
The S.A. Group had already gotten a report on Shin Youngwoo's background that was similar to what Yoon Sangmin had spoken.
"Hmm... Your doubts are considerable. Morpheus, tell us what you found from Grid's brain waves?"
[I can't tap into his brain waves completely. There seems to be a partial barrier that segregates things I can see and what I can't.]
Morpheus reported.
"Hmm... That is interesting and suspicious at the same time. Is there anything wrong with Satisfy or you? Are there other peculiarities about Grid?"
[There isn't anything wrong with me or Satisfy as per my calculations. Though there are indeed some peculiarities about Grid.]
[Although his fighting style can't be compared to Chiyou since he doesn't have skills currently, his swordsmanship style has a striking resemblance to Chiyou's Sword Dance. However, his execution of sword dances is different from Chiyou's.]
Morpheus reported again.
"Th-this... peculiar... very peculiar indeed. Even transcendent beings were not revealed in all the game testings let alone an absolute being. How can someone have a similar skillset to an absolute being then? As far as I remember correctly, he wasn't chosen for any beta testing as well. Does he truly have malicious intentions toward us and Satisfy?"
Lim Cheolho contemplated and asked a question again.
[From what I have seen, he doesn't have any bad intentions toward either the S.A. Group or the Satisfy.]
Morpheus reported again.
Meanwhile, the scientists checking up on Morpheus also reported that everything was alright. This proved that nothing was wrong with either Morpheus or the Satisfy. This was also suspicious since these results also sought the answer of Grid's existence. The answer for what an anomaly Grid or Shin Youngwoo was.
After much contemplation, the chairman spoke again and gave orders—
"We won't delve further into this matter for now. Morpheus, please keep an eye on Grid and his brain waves permanently. Find out what he truly wants. Whether he is bad for Satisfy or not. According to our policy of non-interference in Satisfy, we won't do anything to Grid's character until he poses some actual threat to the whole world of Satisfy."
"Also, since most of us are mentally exhausted and the night is darkening, we should go to sleep. Leave only some personnel behind to observe the first-day launch of Satisfy. We will come to the company tomorrow with fresh minds and think of solutions if any untoward thing happens."
With that, most people went to their homes to get some sleep, leaving only some personnel behind for the observational work as ordered by the chairman.
***
Meanwhile, Grid reached a safe and secluded place to check on his current status and the things he had acquired...