Second Life: Welcome to Gaia

The party collected all the drops from the ground excitedly, wishing that the items would be equipment pieces that suit them. They are elite players with high combat abilities but, most of their gear is of low level and rank, in other words, weak for their current level. But to get good equipment takes time to get because they would have to farm or do quests, so they exchange it for a fast level up. They can get better gear later after all. But now, they are suffering the consequences of being undergeared because the dungeons have a high requirement for equipment. They only can challenge the Normal mode White Birch Mountain Forest dungeon because of their great battle abilities because their equipment is too weak even on easy mode. If a normal player tries to challenge the Normal mode with the same equipment as them, the result would be terrible, they wouldn't get past the first monster.

The White Birch Mountain Forest is the most low-level dungeon of the region around the City of Ji and was created with the objective of gearing the players of the region, helping them get better equipment, skills, and spellbooks. So the drop rate of such items in the dungeon is high, even in easy and Normal mode.

When the party looked at the items dropped, they became excited because of the quality of the items they got after killing just 10 goblins, that they killed so easily. But what they didn't though was that it is necessary to fight all goblins at the same time because it is impossible to pull only one or two monsters from the encampment, increasing the difficulty of the battle in a way that only high geared players or those with good combat abilities can challenge.

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[Goblin's Spauders] (Wood, Armor set: Shoulder)

Description: A piece of armor used by goblins. This armor was made in a way that it can adapt even for tall people to use.

DEF + 10

Level Requirement: 5

Class Requirement: Any physical class

Durability: 30/30

Weight: 4

(Goblin Armor Set)

[Goblin's Leather Corselet]

[Goblin's helm]

[Goblin's Leather Pants]

[Goblin's Spauders]

[Goblin's Leather Boots]

[Goblin's Bracers]

[Goblin's Belt]

Set - 2 pieces Bonus: You gain DEF + 10

Set - 4 pieces Bonus: You gain DEF + 15 and DEX +1

Set - 6 pieces Bonus: You gain DEF +20, STR +2, AGI +2, VIT +2, and 50 HP.

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[Goblin's Pants] (Wood, Armor set: Pants)

Description: A piece of armor used by goblins. This armor was made in a way that it can adapt even for tall people to use.

DEF + 7

Level Requirement: 5

Class Requirement: Any physical class

Durability: 30/30

Weight: 3

(Goblin Armor Set)

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[Loincloth] (Wood, Armor: Pants)

Description: A piece of fabric that only covers the essentials.

DEF + 5

Level Requirement: 5

Class Requirement: Unrestricted

Durability: 30/30

Weight: 2

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"Look at these set items. Third Bro, you got lucky this time. They suit a tank and will be a great help in boss battles." Tang Yunfan is a fighter but he chose to play as a pure-DPS, so Ye Yan is the only one that plays as the tank in the party because of his hybrid build the focus not only in attack but in defense as well. With his martial arts techniques, plus the fan that can be used as a shield, he can tank the bosses without problems. Later, maybe he would have to get more defensive items and skills but for now, it is enough.

Ye Yan equipped the two pieces of the Goblin's set, increasing his defense by 15 points. He has now around 120 of defense and became almost invulnerable in this Normal mode dungeon.

"Well, now we need to decide which player will get the loincloth. I will pass." Dovakin said trying not to laugh but without much success. His Dragonborn face became distorted by his laugh resulting in a strange sight to behold. A reptile smile really hurts the eyes.

"I'm using the Goblin's Pants already." Ye Yan didn't want the equipment and was looking forward to knowing who would be courageous enough to use this loincloth.

The rest of the team members looked at one another and everyone decided to give up on the item. Use such a thing would be too embarrassing, and just a few points in defense are negligible for them. So Ye Yan kept the item to put in the auction house later.

The rest of the drops were only some [Goblin's teeth] and [Goblin's ear] that Conan kept in his bag, to save them for posterior use. Every character begins the game with a 20 slots bag, so they have a limited quantity of space to store the items until they buy another bag. Because of it, they started to distribute the drops in a way that wouldn't fill their bags.

After keeping the items, the party looked around the encampment to see if anything is hiding that they can use. Many times in previous games, they found trunks or random items hiding somewhere around the map. They discovered a wooden chest that was 30 cm in width, 20 in height, and 20 in-depth and was hidden in a place difficult o find, that they only discovered because of a mixture of luck and good observation. Inside the trunk was the [White Birch Mountain Forest Map]. With this map, it would be possible for them to continue the dungeon without worrying about getting lost in the woods.

They were worried before because they didn't found a path leading to the next stage of the dungeon and thought that they would have to enter the woods and look for a way out.

They followed the map and entered the woods through the location indicated on it and tried to walk in a straight line to the top of the mountain. They were attacked by many gigantic insects along the way, like ants, spiders, centipedes, and snakes, and they defeated them easily. Sadly, they only drop items that were parts of their bodies.

After some time, they got to another clearing and looked around. It seemed empty but they weren't dumb enough to believe it and step inside without making sure it is safe or where the enemies are located. After observing the place, Fox Demon noticed that the foliage on the ground, in the middle of the clearing, was moving slightly to the side. When they observed the place carefully, they discovered that there is a spider camouflaged among the foliage. The biggest spider they have ever seen was hiding in the middle of the clearing to surprise attack the players that pass near it, which would instakill most of those that didn't have high defense.

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[Giant Bird Spider] (Chieftan) [1]

Description: A very aggressive and venomous spider that likes to surprise attack its prey.

HP: 1200

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"The dungeon's first boss looks dreadful." Thumbelina looked at the spider that is so big that its fangs are of the same height as herself. It has a hairy body with dark-brown color, eight eyes, eight legs, and two fangs ready to bite.

Snow White nods her head vehemently agreeing with Thumbelina. She hates spiders and seeing one of this size makes her remember why she chose a healer class this time as well. When she played console games with her brothers before, they made her create a healer to help them, then she got used to it and had always played this kind of role in games. She wanted to play a mage this time but when she thought that she would have to fight monsters, she gave up on the idea.

"It looks like there are no other monsters here but the boss. Let's use the standard positioning to fight him. I will test its strength now. Wait for my signal to attack." Ye Yan instructed his friends. In the standard positioning, the tank would aggro the boss while the close-range DPS attack him not very far from the tank, the long-ranged DPS would stay as far away as the skill range permit, and the healer would situate themselves between both groups of players because their skill range is lower than the mages and archers.

Ye Yan started the fight with the skill [Bash] and took 26HP of the boss. He made a quick calculation and concluded that the boss's defense is equal to 30, then their attacks would do very low damage but they can kill it if he can tank the boss until the end.

The boss attacked him with his front legs and he decided to take the hit to know how much damage he would take by the boss's attacks. He only lost 12 of his 113 health points that represent about 10,5% of his total life. To someone with 118 of defense, it is a very huge amount.

"Try don't get hit by the boss or it can instakill you guys if it uses a more powerful attack. Be careful!" He started to build aggro and after a few seconds, he signaled to his teammates to start attacking.

Ye Yan dodged the boss leg attacks and started to hit his head (cephalothorax) and the front legs, so his teammates could focus on hitting the abdomen that looked to be the weak spot of the boss. Their physical attacks were inflicting about 5 damage, the fire spells, 12 damage and the ice spells could take 8 HP of the boss life.

Sometimes, the box raised his two front legs and used [Venomous Bite] to attack, but Ye Yan succeded in dodge or shielding himself using his fan every time.

When the boss health reached 10%, he entered berserker state, gaining a 20% increase in damage and 10% speed boost. This increase in speed put some pressure on Ye Yan that had to start to defending more. When he used his fan as a shield, he needed to be very precise because compared with a real shield, a fan is smaller.

The boss started to use a new move, a skill in which he raises his front legs and shoot webs from it and the spinneret in the tip of his abdomen[2].

From afar, Ye Yan's moves look as if he was doing some kind of strange exercise and contortions because some angles that his body form are very weird to the spectators. Normally, his dodging skills are more elegant looking but his movement speed and attack speed in the game is lower than in real life, then he needs to improvise to evade the boss, otherwise, he wouldn't have time to do so.

After the combined attacks of his teammates and him, the boss fell, dropping a lot of items on the ground.

System: Congratulation! You level up. You gained 1 BP and 1 SP.

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[1] The Chinese Bird Spider is one of the most dangerous animals in South China. It normally only attack insects and small rodents, but if they bite a human, the person should run to the nearer hospital or would suffer from severe nerve damage, and can even die if not treated.

[2] The tarantulas are like the spider-man, they can shoot silk from spigots in their feet to climb slippery surfaces.