There's nothing much to say about locking a player's base attributes.
In most cases, a player's primary competition comes from other players. If attributes aren't locked, players with lower attributes could easily exploit the SAO leveling rules to quickly and temporarily equalize their strength with players with higher attributes. This is unacceptable in a system that claims to be fair and just.
Combined with the fact that experience points earned from kills are evenly distributed among the story-based NPC companions in the team, this means that within this illusion, the system is actually indirectly encouraging players to team up with story-based NPCs to conquer the floating city of Aincrad.
After all, compared to players whose attributes have been locked, NPC time travelers are the best teammates with unlimited potential.
While cultivating a team of such rookies might be difficult in the early stages, once the average attributes of their NPC time travelers surpass their own, the situation will be reversed in an instant.
At that point, players could simply stay within their group, offering advice and doing nothing, easily reaping the points and equipment dropped by bosses alongside their already established teammates.
It's easy to imagine how fiercely contested these would be if this were an unmodified SAO fantasy world, with prominent and promising NPC characters like the original protagonists Kirito, Asuna, and Klein.
Thankfully, this is a single-player fantasy world without competition. Luo Jie can simply focus on his own goals, without the distractions of dealing with unexpected events and incidents caused by other players, as in a multiplayer fantasy world.
Of course, from a purely level-clearing perspective, having only Asuna and Katsura Kotonoha might seem a bit undersized for a complete team.
However, Luo Jie never blindly believed in large teams. Quality, not quantity, was paramount. As long as this illusion maintained its original SAO framework and hadn't been rigged into some "only-pay-to-win" Chinese online game version, he was confident that, with the strategy he'd memorized from his previous life, he could turn Asuna and Katsura Kotonoha into top-tier players capable of taking on ten opponents at once.
And don't let that stop him: he still had a trump card.
The hidden class, located within the 55th floor of the Snow Mountain Dragon's Lair—the [Cheat Suppressor].
…
Monster hunting isn't like hunting in the mountains, much less farming.
Once you've left the city walls, you can't return until you reach the next level.
Thus, pre-departure preparations are crucial.
Tents, medicine, a small amount of food and water—these are essential supplies.
If possible, it's best to also have a packhorse. This will greatly increase your range, reduce fatigue from the journey, and maintain your combat effectiveness.
Of course, for the cash-strapped time travelers, the latter was still a luxury.
Fortunately, before reaching Level 5, they could only wander the woods and grasslands surrounding the royal capital, looking after each other and gradually familiarizing themselves with the rhythm of battle. Perhaps they could even return to the city before dark for a warm dinner, and for now, there was no need to worry about traveling far.
"Mr. Nightmare, where are we going now?"
Standing on the suspension bridge at the royal city's east gate, gazing at the emerald green grasslands dotted with a few low shrubs, Asuna looked bewildered.
Katsura Kotonoha also gripped the one-handed steel knife she had just purchased from the weapon shop, clearly not as calm as she appeared.
From his previous life, Luo Jie's memories of this illusion were limited to a few classes and how to obtain key items. He was completely clueless about the most basic operations, like killing monsters and leveling up, and knew no more than Asuna and the others.
Helpless, he gritted his teeth and opened the map of the first level in the Monster Encyclopedia, taking a look. He raised his hand and pointed northwest.
Most monster girls have a clear sense of territory and generally stay within their own colony's territory when not in heat.
It was precisely because of this habit that the Seven Shield Alliance was able to create the incredibly detailed monster girl distribution map in the Monster Encyclopedia.
Luo Jie chose the northwest, partly because it was the direction with the largest and most densely populated monster girl populations, and partly because the teleportation array to the second level was located within the ruined tower to the northwest.
However, Luo Jie soon encountered an unexpected situation.
No monsters were found.
After years of subjugation, the large-scale monster girl populations near the first level's royal city were long gone, mostly scattered individuals.
Although the number of time-traveling NPCs who dared to fight outside the city was currently less than two thousand, it was still too many for this already small grassland.
Thus, the classic scene from the launch of any online game unfolded—the entire grassland was swarming with players, weapons in hand, hunting monsters. Occasionally, a hapless monster girl, barely emerging from the earth for air, would be gleefully clubbed to death by a group of shouting and jubilant individuals.
But unlike online games, the monster girls in this world were living creatures; they couldn't simply reappear from nowhere after their death. Thus, the small grassland stretching as far as the eye could see was quickly razed by the rabid travelers, even passing small animals like ducks and rabbits suffered.
After confirming that there were no living creatures around except humans, the travelers, having won their first battle, felt a surge of confidence. Grabbing their weapons and loot, they called their friends and set off to the next group of monster girls.
"Mr. Nightmare, why do I feel like what we're doing is so cruel?"
Looking at the battered corpses of the monster girls lying in the grass, a hint of pity crossed the faces of the kindhearted Asuna and Katsura Kotonoha.
"You should be thankful that the ten thousand brave warriors summoned this time aren't a bunch of Chinese from Guangdong Province."
Having seen mountains of corpses in his previous life's illusions, this small spectacle naturally couldn't shake Luo Jie's already rock-hard heart. He turned, straightened the bag on the packhorse's back, and took the reins. "Keep going. This insane species extinction is only temporary. With their current strength, we'll be lucky if we can reach the edge of the forest before sunset today."
The herons would slow down eventually anyway, and Luo Jie didn't want Asuna and Katsura Kotonoha to waste their limited energy racing. So, leading the packhorse he'd bought for a hundred gold coins, he and the two girls strolled leisurely, trailing behind the main group of time travelers.
Luo Jie's words soon came true.
Of course, this wasn't a prophecy, merely an inevitability.
As they neared the edge of the forest, the large group of travelers encountered two herds of over fifty wild boar maidens of varying sizes.
Unlike the fragile insect-type monster maidens from the grasslands, these wild boar maidens, with their dark skin, muscular build, and two lower fangs, possessed astonishing strength and defense.
A typical steel knife would leave at most a white mark, barely breaking the hide. However, a head-on collision with one of them would likely break several ribs.
With such a disparate power gap, the travelers suffered their first casualties—two dead and eleven injured.
Four men were also captured by the wild boar maidens, and their fate was likely a fate worse than death.