It was true; after all, Su Chen was just an ordinary person before. Even though he was now a god, he might not even be able to beat a street thug, and the possibility of being beaten up was actually higher.
The sun had already set, and the sky was gradually darkening. Almost everyone in the park had disappeared.
Looking around, Su Chen was the only one left, sitting in a corner of the park and talking to himself while facing a black book.
After a while, Su Chen stood up and stretched his limbs. He had been sitting in this park for most of the day. The events of this day were things he had once fantasized about but never expected to actually experience—unscientific yet full of magic.
Taking in the surrounding scenery, Su Chen realized that his first day in this other world had passed just like that.
It felt like a dream, yet it was truly real.
He went from initial shock and being at a loss to his current state of gradual calm.
There was no one else around. The streetlights in the park had lit up, their soft glow spilling onto the ground and gradually lengthening his shadow.
Everything before his eyes was so real, telling Su Chen that he was no longer in his original world. The world he was in now was one from an anime called high school dxd, a world filled with all sorts of incredible people and things.
What he needed to do now was to first leave this world, which was relatively dangerous for him, and go to other worlds to become stronger before returning. Then, he wouldn't have to be as cautious as he was now.
"Has the Divine Lord decided to leave?" the faith scripture asked Su Chen.
"Yes," Su Chen said. He and the faith scripture had already discussed which world to go to. By exploiting the loopholes of that world, Su Chen could move past the ranks of ordinary people and become stronger at the fastest possible speed. Although he couldn't compare to the gods and demons of this world, Su Chen was very satisfied. This was because he wouldn't have to worry about language barriers there, and issues like food, clothing, housing, and transportation would be easy to resolve.
"Let's go," Su Chen said to the pitch-black divine codex in his hand. Then he looked around again, took a deep breath, and shouted loudly toward the distance, "I will be back!"
As the words fell, the space around him began to distort. The warped space swallowed Su Chen, gradually disappearing into a single point. A moment later, the area returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened at all.
Chapter 3: First Arrival in Sword Art
A dizzying sensation of the world spinning hit him. Before Su Chencould adapt, there was a "thud," and he was heavily thrown onto the grass. The pain and dizziness struck simultaneously, making Su Chenfeel terrible.
"This feels awful. Damn book scripture, couldn't you teleport properly?" Su Chen complained in his mind.
He closed his eyes and lay on the grass to rest for a while until the nauseating dizziness finally vanished and the pain in his back gradually faded. Opening his eyes, Su Chen slowly sat up. The first thing he saw was a stretch of emerald-green grass. A breeze blew past, feeling slightly cool. There was no one around. With a thought, the pitch-black faith scripture appeared in his hand.
"Is this really sword art online?" Looking at the scenery before him, which was indistinguishable from the real world, Su Chen asked with a bit of disbelief.
"Yes, Divine Lord, this is the SAO game world."
Su Chen had considered many worlds, but only this one was the most suitable. By using some of the divine codex's remaining divine power, he could use the game world's method of killing monsters and leveling up to quickly become stronger.
Other players in sword art online entered this world by projecting their consciousness through helmets, but Su Chen, with the help of the faith scripture, had digitized his body and entered the game directly in person.
Using this method, he could convert attribute points and skill points from the game into real abilities. Moreover, he could use the faith scripture as a special game item without worrying about exposure, saving a lot of trouble. More importantly, he didn't have to worry about language barriers. The only drawback was that the sense of pain could not be completely blocked.
"Let's see how this game is played first."
"Where is the main menu? Hmm... like this." A virtual panel emerged, floating quietly in front of Su Chen.
Su Chen looked at the menu panel and used his finger to scroll down. "There really is no logout menu." Then, he pulled up his character's attribute panel.
Strength: 54
Agility: 49
Constitution: 45
Spirit: 41
These were Su Chen's initial attributes, far higher than the level of an ordinary player's starting stats. Each attribute was nearly four times that of a normal player.
"My attributes are this high?" Su Chen was puzzled. Could it be that the faith scripture changed them too? He didn't expect this fellow could be used as a cheat to modify stats.
"During the dimensional teleportation, the remaining divine power was used to strengthen the Divine Lord's body to increase the Divine Lord's survival rate. The Divine Lord just hadn't noticed it yet," the faith scripture quickly provided an answer.
"Indeed!" Su Chen clenched his fists, feeling that his Strength was much greater than usual. The back that had just been slammed no longer hurt; it had recovered in just a few minutes. The increase in basic attributes had indeed improved Su Chen's Constitution; otherwise, it would have taken a long time to recover from that fall.
Such attributes were equivalent to a gap of several levels, providing too many benefits at the start of the game. The wild monsters appearing in Starting Town were relatively ordinary, and their damage wouldn't be too high. As long as he was careful, he could easily raise his level. Once he adapted to the game, it would be even simpler.
"Let's go kill some monsters first."
Opening the inventory bar, there was only a plain novice knife and one hundred col! He equipped the novice knife and played with it for a bit. Then he opened the skill bar; one was the universal novice skill 'Thrust,' and there were two other skills for the player to choose: 'Hiding' and 'Searching.'
Su Chen chose the Searching skill without hesitation. After all, in the SAO he knew, Searching was much more practical than Hiding.
After selecting the skill, Su Chen began to search around, looking for a novice monster to test his hand on.
As he walked, mysterious signals began to pop up before Su Chen's eyes. "Hmm? What's the situation?" Su Chen checked the skill bar and realized the Searching skill had been activated.
Turning his head, he saw a wild boar not far away, charging toward Su Chen with large, crimson eyes.
"I'll use you to test my hand first."
Although a bit afraid, Su Chen still walked up to meet the wild boar, taking the knife in his hand and slashing at it.
In the next moment, Su Chen was knocked flying by the enraged boar, but he had also slashed away nearly two-thirds of the boar's health.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Su Chen scrambled up in a hurry. Ignoring the pain, he took his knife, stepped forward again, and delivered another slash. The boar's health bar instantly emptied.
The wild boar's body burst apart, turning into fragments of light and disappearing. A projection panel appeared before Su Chen's eyes, displaying the experience points he had gained.
"I didn't even use a skill just now," Su Chen muttered to himself, looking at where the boar had vanished. "Next, I'll try a skill."
Su Chen found another wild boar. "I remember the skills here are triggered by striking a starting pose..."
He slowly triggered 'Thrust.' Immediately, a pose appeared in Su Chen's mind as if by divine inspiration. Reflexively, he raised the knife in his hand to his shoulder and turned his body sideways. At the same time, the blade was filled with a pink light.
Then, Su Chen practically shot forward, quickly arriving in front of the wild boar and thrusting the knife forward.
An illusory wound appeared on the wild boar, and its health dropped rapidly, quickly crossing the yellow line, then the red line, before hitting bottom and turning into fragments.
"One-shot kill, not bad." Su Chen nodded with satisfaction at the effect of the skill. The experience bar at the bottom rose again.
One skill per monster; even with normal attacks, he could kill a boar in two hits. With this efficiency, he should be able to level up to level two immediately.
Thus, for the next period of time, Su Chen searched everywhere and began grinding wild boars. On one hand, he could level up, and on the other, it was to gradually adapt to the game.
After the wild boar in front of him turned into fragments and vanished, a burst of light flashed around Su Chen. The system prompted that he had leveled up; his current level was level two.
"Uh, it seems I saw Kirito and Klein from the original story just now." Su Chen thought for a moment. "It looks like SAO is about to truly begin."
He shook his head, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, and continued grinding wild boars to save every second.
Before long, the novice knife in his hand reached its limit. Its durability had dropped to zero, and a red weapon icon indicated that the novice knife could no longer be equipped.
With no other choice, Su Chen opened the mini-map and followed the route to Starting Town.
The streets were still a scene of bustling activity, with many players chatting happily. Such a scene would soon fall into infinite panic because of an announcement.
Su Chen went straight along the street to the weapon shop, tossed his broken knife and the materials he had looted to the shop, bought a Katana, and casually threw it into his inventory.
Chapter 4: The Death Game Opening
Just as Su Chen finished organizing his inventory and was preparing to leave the city to grind another wave of monsters, suddenly, the 'ding-dong—ding-dong—' sound of bells rang out.
Su Chen knew this was the alarm for the true beginning of the game. Then, he was enveloped in blue light. Looking out through this layer of blue light, the players on the street were also being surrounded by blue light one by one and then disappearing. The scene before him gradually faded away.
As the blue light gradually faded, what appeared next was a huge plaza surrounded by roadside trees.
This was the central plaza of Starting Town. Players were still being teleported in from time to time, and the entire plaza was already packed with crowds.
For a few seconds, the crowd was silent because they couldn't figure out the situation, then they began to look around in a panic. Soon after, noisy voices broke out from everywhere, growing louder and louder. Words like "What's going on?", "Can we log out like this?", "I'm definitely going to complain once I'm out!", and "Let me out quickly!" kept coming.
Su Chen casually found a corner to sit down and waited boredly.
After nearly ten more minutes, a piercing sound rang out.
"Look up!"
A hundred meters in the sky, a hexagon glowing with red light appeared.
It flashed with a "System Announcement Warning" prompt and emitted a piercing sound. Shortly after, the hexagon began to spread frantically, instantly covering the entire sky and shrouding the entire plaza.
At the seams between the hexagons, huge, thick droplets that looked like blood began to drip down. They fell slowly but did not hit the ground, suddenly changing shape in mid-air.
It was a giant nearly twenty meters tall, clad in a deep red hooded cloak. A character looking like a Judgment Knight stood there in mid-air, giving off an extremely terrifying feeling.
The people around began to panic. "Players, welcome to my world." A low male voice came from under that hood. "My name is Akihiko Kayaba. I am currently the only person who can control this world."
Su Chen was somewhat bored. After all, he already knew roughly what Akihiko Kayaba was going to say—nothing more than having to clear 100 floors with only one life. So he simply closed his eyes to rest his mind.
After a long while, the plaza, which had become quiet because of Akihiko Kayaba's appearance, suddenly erupted with a massive noise.
"It's a lie, right... what's going on? This must be a lie!"
"Stop joking! Let me out quickly!"
"Complaint! I'm definitely going to complain once I get out!"
Wails, screams, angry curses, pleas, and roars.
Su Chen opened his eyes and found that some of these players were crouching on the ground with their heads in their hands, some were hugging each other, and some were even cursing at one another.
Shaking his head, Su Chen stood up. The most important thing now was to level up and improve his attributes. After glancing at the panicked crowd, he turned and left the plaza, heading toward the outskirts of town.
Right now, Su Chen's only advantage was his attribute values, which were several levels higher than other players. However, this game had nearly 1,000 Closed Beta Testers who possessed information Su Chendidn't have. It wouldn't take long for them to catch up to those attribute points.
The resources in this game were limited. Closed Beta players could use their foreknowledge to level up quickly using known information, not to mention the protagonist Kirito, who was known as a Beater. By then, equipment and experience would surely be easily obtained by these people.
Only by utilizing this massive early-game advantage to quickly raise his level could he keep up with their pace or at least not fall too far behind.
At this time, besides Kirito, there should be many other Closed Beta players rushing to the next town to snatch monsters.
Furthermore, the wild monsters in Starting Town could no longer satisfy Su Chen's current experience needs. He also had to rush to the next town at the fastest possible speed.