Perhaps it was because the wild tiger packs that I had nearly wiped out were gone, that the security of the village improved by 2 points, the environment by 1 point, and due to the considerable trade volume between me, Abao and the vendors, the economy also increased by 1 point. Additionally, my level increase also added 1 point to the village's military strength.
Perhaps the game console noticed our efforts, and in the wild, I even managed to rescue a homeless man from the jaws of a tiger. He joined our village.
Now the attributes of the Village of Despair are: Population 8, Military Strength 7, Culture 2, Magic 2, Economy 2, Security 5, Production 2, Environment 3. The village's comprehensive strength ranking is 10,398,800. It has risen by 53 places in such a short period of time, although it is not much in over a million villages, but I am truly very happy. I feel my own value. This is a real sense of existence that I have never experienced in my twenty-some years of real life. It turns out that the meaning of life is not about enjoying, but about demonstrating one's own value.
Similarly, so many people are obsessed with the game not because they want to play, but because they cannot prove their value in reality, so they go to the game to seek a virtual sense of existence.
Walking through the village, I felt that everyone's gaze towards me was filled with respect and gratitude. Although the emotions of the NPCs are only virtual, it still made me very, very satisfied. Especially the village chief, he would give me encouraging glances from time to time (is he preparing to pass the position to me ha ha).
However, there is one thing that is very annoying. The new homeless man was really lazy. During the period when I leveled up to 17th level, he was sleeping in the house, woke up and sat by the door to bask in the sun (still sleeping), when the wild dogs bit him, he hid in the house and closed the door. He was so useless. At noon, he even went to the houses of the other two families to try to get some food, but couldn't get it and didn't eat. It seemed that he didn't need much energy either.
When I was doing the job of clearing wild beasts in the village, I observed him for a while. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I talked to him. Actually, ideological work should be done by the village chief, but it seems that the computer-simulated village chief doesn't care about the people at all.
After all, I saved his life. This guy named "A Water" was still willing to chat with me. After using "skills" and "professions" words, I finally learned that A Water's only skill was: "Fishing".
I was dizzy. In the northwest area, there is very little water. The nearest small riverbed takes more than three hours to walk. Who knows how the fisherman from the southeast area ended up here.
There's no choice. To save a promising young man and let him fend for himself, I persuaded him to resume his old profession.
I made a fishing rod and protected A Water all the way to the small riverbed. Six hours later, we finally arrived. I also leveled up to 18th level.
In that area by the river, there were 21-level monsters " ". My experience was mainly obtained from them.
These are similar to turtles, but with large heads and terrifying faces. I was the first to encounter monsters that can attack from a distance. Their "saliva" spraying is five steps away, but it is far less than my magic, so when my physical attack couldn't break through their defense, I used magic to hit it.
While fighting, running at a terrifyingly slow speed. When my magic was full, they hadn't even reached me. It was truly completely without threat.
The experience given by the 20-level monsters was very high. I regretted not finding this place earlier. I wonder when the vendor will restock and bring me magic potions back. If there are enough potions, my leveling up would be at least three times faster!
Other NPCs have schedules, they all go to sleep at night, but this A Water seems not to need it. He has slept long enough during the day, so he fished until the next morning. His load was full, and that's when he told me to return to the village. And I had leveled up to 19.5th level, and the reward I received at 19th level was Strength 2, Constitution 5, Agility 0, Spirit 4, HP increased by 15, MP 8. It seems that fighting such monsters that prevent high blood pressure has many benefits for one's physical condition and the growth of HP. Unfortunately, there is no sensitivity. At the same time, using a lot of magic obviously can increase spirit and MP.
On the way back to the village, there were fewer monsters. It only took four hours to get home. I made up my mind not to go again. Although I found very good monsters for leveling up, taking into account the time spent walking, my experience was still lost. It wouldn't be wise to give up my leveling up for such an NPC like A Shui just to make him stand on his own feet.
However, looking back, how could I have decided to help him find the river valley yesterday? I was stupid, weren't I? Could I really have become someone who can't distinguish between reality and the game? I must remember that although the characters in the game have intelligence, they are all virtual data without emotions. There's no need to be too kind to them!
But soon I convinced myself: Flattering NPCs usually triggers tasks. A Shui must have many stories from his journey from the southeast to the northwest. Also, if this A Shui has nothing to do and lies there every day, it will affect my mood. Well, that's it. Let's continue to help him.
Taking the lesson from last time, I asked various NPCs about things like "transportation", "horses", and "lightning skills", hoping to get faster ways to travel. Finally, Abao gave me a piece of information. On the grassland one day's journey in the northwest direction, I saw a foreign herdsman there. They might have horses for sale.
Although the journey is far, I understand the importance of a horse. The villages and cities around are full of low-level monsters, and to fight high-level monsters, you need to travel a long distance. If you can save the time for traveling, your leveling up speed will increase by more than double.
Next is the preparation work. Using my intelligence, I combined the hard shell with the tiger skin to make a set of "enamelled tiger skin equipment". The "basic sewing skill" increased by 50% in experience, and the total defense reached 14, much higher than the 6 points of the previous mixed equipment. However, it also reduced my agility by 3 points.
On the other hand, I was preparing to buy the money for the horse. After killing most of the wild deer around, I finally had 10 silver coins in my possession. I also slowly leveled up to 20.
The village chief gave me a 20-level task to kill 30 25-level monsters called "Fei Zhan". I estimated that I didn't have the strength for that, and besides, the area where the Fei Zhan appeared was ten hours away. Let's wait until I buy the horse and come back.
During this period of preparation, A Shui couldn't go fishing. But now he is much more energetic. Besides selling the fish he caught last time to the peddler, he also gave some to our neighbors. I also learned farming from the village farmers A and others (the "farming skill" is the lowest level skill, and NPCs can easily learn it). I immediately gained everyone's favor. When I was leaving, A Shui even gave me the five silver coins he used to sell the fish, insisting that I keep them. How touching!
I filled my storage space with blood medicine and food (the dry food sold by the peddler costs 10 copper coins per portion, and I only need to eat two portions a day). There was also the fish dried by A Shui. The taste was much better than the dry food. I headed towards the northwest.
With a level of 20, along with decent tiger skin boots, it increased my speed a lot. It took only two and a half hours to reach the grassland instead of three hours last time. Thinking of that wolf king, looking at my new outfit, abundant blood medicine, I was determined to settle accounts with it.
Killing the boss is for equipment, so don't pursue difficulty anymore. Outside the area where the wolf king moves, I spent an hour digging a trap more than two meters deep.
Thanks to Abao's "trap technique", thinking about when I didn't have this skill, a small trap took me two hours. But now this professional trap, with the same materials, the system shows that they have 30 damage and 20 animal trapping ability, which is much stronger than my previous trap that dealt 1 damage to an animal and 1 damage to a trap.
Entering the area of the wolf king, without me shouting or searching, a strong stench soon approached. I immediately backed away. I had no time to look back. My intuition told me that the wolf king was chasing me from behind.
I ran to the trap and jumped over it with all my strength. Then I turned around and drew my sword, staring at the wolf king.
The wolf king was somewhat intelligent. It seemed to realize the danger ahead and suddenly stopped, looking at me. During the standoff, my "intuition" came into play, detecting that although this wolf king was only level 20, due to being a boss, its attributes in all aspects far exceeded those of the ordinary monsters at the same level.
I took a deep breath and felt that I had entered my best state. A fireball was launched. The wolf king suddenly vanished, and the fireball missed!
This was the first time my spell had failed. You know, spells usually have a lock, unlike arrows which have a hit rate problem. Moreover, the spell speed was so fast that a high evasion rate was required. I thought that these boss-level monsters should also have an extremely strong "intuition", and only by avoiding intuition and instinct could they avoid the spell.
My second spell flew past the wolf king's ear, but it finally managed to anger the wolf king. It roared and flew towards me, landing on top of my head. I couldn't dodge, otherwise the wolf king would successfully jump over the trap and, unable to dodge in mid-air, launch another fireball, then swing my sword and shield to resist the wolf king's front paws!
The fireball hit the vital area of the wolf king's abdomen, only causing it 10 or so points of damage. It seemed that its magic defense was not low either. But it still affected its attack.
The wolf king landed on my sword and shield, and the huge impact force caused my health to drop sharply. Even taking two blood potions couldn't stop the loss of damage. The attack was too strong! I didn't expect that my greatly improved physical strength and equipment defense, with blood points more than 60 points higher than when I was at level 10, would still collapse?
But I was still persisting, crazily taking blood potions, my feet firmly gripping the ground, not taking a single step back!
When my health was only 6 points left, with a loud bang, the wolf king was finally held back and fell into the trap. At the moment of landing, its two paws grabbed the edge of the trap. I made a split-second decision and swung my sword to remove the soil at the edge.
If I had chopped its paws, it wouldn't have caused much damage. The wolf king might have climbed up. But if I hadn't hit it, the 2-meter-long trap could have been jumped over.
Intercepting the wolf king was extremely difficult and thrilling. I had to judge which direction it would leap based on its body's turn. And the intelligent wolf king, after being knocked back into the pit several times, even used a feint move. If it weren't for my super intuition and rich gaming experience, it would have succeeded.
To keep up with the wolf king's turn, I had to throw away my leather armor and helmet, enhance agility, although this would cause me to lose more than 20 blood points each time. But if I couldn't block the wolf king with the highest speed, I would have no choice but to die.
The wolf king's attack was about 60 points each time, depending on which part of me it hit.
When I was helping Abao find weapons last time, my defense was even lower than now, but I always desperately dodged, only getting minor injuries. So I lost about 40 points each time. Now, I had to face it head-on, and the damage was much higher. If it weren't because the wolf king couldn't jump up due to being attacked from the bottom and the attack was weakened, it would be even more terrifying. And at the beginning, my entire equipment was hit by it for 100 points of damage. That was because the wolf king attacked from above and used the "pounce" skill, causing the damage to double.
My iron sword with 7 attacks hit the wolf king, only causing it 1 point of damage. Sometimes it didn't lose any health. Only when it hit its eyes, mouth, throat, etc., would there be 2 or 3 points of damage. Later, I discovered that its nose was the most vulnerable, with 5 points of damage.
The main damage came from the trap. After being hit by the wolf king, the iron arrowheads at the bottom of the trap (given to me by Abao) would cause it damage. Different parts caused damage ranging from 5 to 20.
If the wolf king wanted to rest at the bottom of the pit to regain some health, then my fully charged MP would be of great use. One fireball would burn 10 points of health, forcing it to jump up again. Fortunately, it didn't know that my MP was only enough for 5 fireballs before it had to wait to recover. Otherwise, if it stayed at the bottom of the pit and let me use up all my spells, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to kill it for the rest of my life.
Time seemed extremely long. I had already lost the awareness of calculating the wolf king's health. The last time I calculated, it lost a total of 2000+ points of health. After that, I had no energy to mentally calculate anymore. I don't know how long it would take to drain its health. Was it encountering a monster with unlimited health that couldn't be killed? Usually, the tiger with the highest health I fought was only 100 points, and the 21-level monster seemed to be 180 points. How could a 20-level boss have so much health?
My consciousness began to blur. I was almost relying solely on instinct to fight the wolf king. In my perception, the wolf king's attacks began to weaken. Finally, a long, mournful cry. The wolf king lay motionless in the pit, with several iron arrows deeply inserted into its abdomen. I fired several fireballs at it, and the system message said: "You killed the wolf king, gaining 30000 experience points and a 10-point increase in reputation."
Then, there was the upgrade message: "You have reached level 21. Reward points: Strength 5, Constitution 5, Agility 5, Spirit 5. Explosive Power increased by 1." "You have reached level 22. Reward points: Strength 5, Constitution 5, Agility 5, Spirit 5. Explosive Power increased by 1."