NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4
Chapter 4: The Launching of ‘God’s Miracle’
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
‘Ding!’
With a crisp ding, the notification signaled the official launch of the server. With a flash in his eyes, Zhang Yang had come to an ancient village square.
Within a short period of time, many new players spawned around him. As many more appeared rapidly, the square was filled instantly. Some of the players were forced to squeeze to the side as even more new players spawned.
As this was the first ever virtual reality online game in history, each and every player logged into the game were stunned motionless, appreciating the breathtaking yet vivid surroundings.
“I’m leaving now. This game is so realistic!”
“Damn, don’t block me, let me through!”
“What are you shoving around for? Are you rushing to be reincarnated?!”
“Bastard, where do you think you are placing your hands? Do I look like someone you can simply take advantage of?”
“Lady, with that look, even if you let me touch you, I would be too frightened to!”
“And why are your hands still on my breasts?”
“Hehe, it’s too crowded, there is no space for my hands!”
“Oh God, you lewd dog and lecherous vixen, I can’t stand it! I’d rather go back and jerk off!”
“…”
After some time, the players finally regained their senses and their conversations gradually turned chaotic. Veteran gamers or those who had read the introduction had all rushed off to receive quests from NPCs.
Many players began to swarm the outskirts of the village to hunt and kill various kinds of monsters. The horde of players made were like a swarm of locusts, devouring any monster almost as soon as it spawned through simultaneous attacks by 10 or more players from all sides. These sad monsters died miserably, turning into experience points for the players.
About 10 minutes after the initial launch of the servers, the new players’ spawning rate finally began to slow down to a stable rate of 1 player per minute. Dream Corporation had predicted that there would be a large number of players logging into the server during launch based on the sales of the gaming helmet. In order to accommodate such a scale, they had created tons of dungeons close to the beginner villages in order to disperse the horde of players. This also served to help prevent a low monster-to-player ratio.
The first thing Zhang Yang did was to leave the spawning point. Because of the second opportunity given to him, he was definitely not going to progress through quests like most players would. He had already outlined his own level-up plans before logging in.
While heading to the village entrance, Zhang Yang opened his Skill List to check his current available skills.
A new Guardian was given two skills, <Charge> and <Force Strike>.
[Rush] : Charges toward a target, stunning the target for 2 seconds and gaining 10 Rage. Cooldown time: 30 seconds.
[Force Strike] (Level 1): Performs a powerful strike on the target immediately, dealing 100% of melee damage with a 5% chance to trigger an additional attack. Cost: 30 Rage. Cooldown time: 1 second. Requirement: Melee Weapon.
Skills with levels could be upgraded through allocating Skill Points into it, to a maximum of Level 10. When skills such as <Force Strike> was maxed, the chances of triggering an additional attack would be increased to 50%! However, Skill Points would only be given every 10 levels. Even if one had reached the game’s maximum level of 300, only 30 Skill Points would be accumulated, marking Skill Points as precious and rare. Nevertheless, bonus Skill Points could also be obtained through the completion of some Main Quests and Hidden Quests. Wild Elite Bosses would also have a fixed rate of dropping Skill Points, but the difficulty would then be extremely high.
“Those damn wolves killed another 3 villagers today! Are there any warriors who would help us eliminate these cruel beasts?” asked the snow-bearded village elder while pacing back and forth anxiously. If it were not for the ‘Village Elder Hu An’ tag above his head and a yellow exclamation mark, no one would have noticed the difference between him and a real person!
A yellow exclamation mark represented an NPC who had a quest to give.
The extremely lifelike virtual reality system was one of the most attractive aspects of the game, yet it was also the most controversial. Due to its true-to-life representation, players had actually begun pornography businesses, which eventually led the game company to add an additional patch specifically for this matter. Which eventually led the game to create a patch specifically for this matter – players were forbidden to remove their undergarments!
The funny thing was, some countries had actually requested Dream Technology to exclude them from this settings. They believed that allowing pornographic exchange in virtual reality would alleviate the severity of this particular issue in real life.
After Dream Technology complied, the rate of prostitution activities and rape cases significantly lowered in those countries. Amazed with the phenomena, additional countries had also sent their requests to remove this patch.
As a result, players with too much free time had even selected the world’s ‘Top 10 Prostitutes’ in the eight servers. Quite obviously, some unfortunate and innocent female players were dragged into it. For example, Thousand Elegance, who ranked third in the China server was the only daughter of the chairman of Tian Nan Pharmaceutical in real life. With such wealth, why would she ever get involved in the sexual business? It was plainly ill-intentioned people slandering her and ignorant masses spreading the news which ultimately ruined her innocence in the end.
Of course, these were out of the topic.
Zhang Yang moved forward and said, “Dear respected village elder, I am willing to serve!”
The village elder was overjoyed and said, “Courageous young lad, your kindness will definitely be thanked with God’s blessing!”
‘Ding! You have received a quest: Eliminate the Wolves!’
Opening the quest log, Zhang Yang checked its description.
[Eliminate the Wolves] (Difficulty Level: D)
Quest Description: You have accepted the request of the village elder. Go to the west of the village and kill 20 wolves to keep the village safe!
Progress: Wolves killed. (0/20)
There were 5 quest difficulty levels in ‘God’s Miracle’, S, A, B, C, and D in descending order. The difficulty level was determined by 2 factors: first, the level difference between the player and the monster; second, the difficulty of the monster itself. As for Zhang Yang’s quest, since the wolves he had to kill were only Level 1, thus the system had determined the difficulty level of the quest to be low and categorized it as Level D.
After receiving the quest, Zhang Yang then ran to the Blacksmith Shop on the outskirts of the village to learn <Smithing> and <Mining> from the blacksmith and the miner respectively. A pickaxe immediately appeared in his inventory.
Then, Zhang Yang went to the west of the village and arrived at the Western Wasteland where the wolves gathered.
Some thirty wolves were wandering around the wasteland, occasionally howling into the sky, their howls piercing and frightening.
Zhang Yang withdrew his Beginner Sword and charged towards a targeted wolf. Although his current damage was low, the wolf’s HP was also similarly low, allowing him to kill one wolf with 7 or 8 hits.
In just a matter of minutes, 20 wolves had been slain by him.
Zhang Yang’s body flashed in a golden light, boosting him to Level 2. All his attributes had increased by 1 point and he obtained 5 additional Attribute Points (AP).
Zhang Yang had simply distributed the extra AP to 4 Strength and 1 Dexterity, and resumed killing wolves only to stop grinding when he had collected 10 pieces of wolf pelt. At the same time, the novice army had neared and proceeded to occupy the Western Wasteland.
Zhang Yang had no intention to remain here. The most undesirable thing during a war of leveling was to have many players but too little mobs. He then decided to leave immediately.
Before leaving, however, he wandered around and was lucky enough to find an Iron Vein. He then took out his pickaxe, and began mining right away.
Ding! You have used <Mining> on an Iron Vein. You have picked up Iron Ore x3. You have gained 1 experience point in <Mining>!
Zhang Yang kept the Iron Ore into his inventory, turned, and left the Western Wasteland. He then returned to village elder to complete the quest ‘Eliminate the Wolves’, obtaining a pair of White-tiered boots and 3000 experience points.
The village elder had still looked troubled, so Zhang Yang continued conversing with him and received a quest called ‘Haunted Cemetery’.
[Haunted Cemetery] (Difficulty Level: C)
Quest Description: Strange things have recently occurred in the cemetery located to the west of the village. Strange noises can be heard whenever night falls! Please find out what has happened!
Progress: Find the source of the haunting. (0/1)
Zhang Yang knew that the quest difficulty had increased because he was about to face a Level 4 monster. A monster relatively stronger compared to his level, resulting in the system categorizing it as Level C.
With the Beginner Sword in his hands, he ran all the way to the West Cemetery.
The tombstones were arranged well but the place was empty, as there were no monsters around. That would mean that no other players were around either. The cold and silent atmosphere gave off an eerie feeling.
Zhang Yang found a tomb and went inside. Pressing on faintly glowing iron plate, a rumbling noise sounded and a tunnel that was only half a man’s height appeared in front of him.
Bending his body, Zhang Yang proceeded into the tunnel towards an open space.
This was a huge underground catacomb, with a passage extending to places far away. Stone chambers lined both sides of the way and faint goosebumps-inducing growls could be heard.
Zhang Yang took a few steps forward and turned into the first stone chamber on the left. With the weak illumination from a torch fire, he was able to see 7 to 8 shabbily-clothed spectres wandering around inside. He took a slight step forward and had immediately entered the Trigger Range of the closest monster. The spectre let out a low cry and attacked Zhang Yang with his fangs and claws.
[Dead Villager] (Normal)
Level: 4
HP: 200
“-11!”
As Zhang Yang slashed with his sword, a white-colored text flickered above the monster’s head. In ‘God’s Miracle’, damage produced by normal attacks would be indicated with white text, while skill-inflicted damage was indicated with yellow text. Additionally, self-damage was indicated with red text, while healing with green text. Finally, critical hits or heals were displayed in magnified text.
A Level 4 mob had HP and Defense much higher than that of a Level 1 wolf. Even though a slash from Zhang Yang had caused 11 HP of damage, it was nothing in comparison to the monster’s HP of 200!