Free Web NovelChapter 11: [11]: The Journey to Threshold, Reaping the Plains
Leaving the Hamlet of Oakhurst behind was the easiest decision Levi had ever made. The starting village was currently a lag-filled nightmare of screaming newbies and stolen slime kills. He didn’t look back once as he walked through the northern wooden gates and hit the main dirt road.
His destination was the City of Thresholds. It was the first major hub designed for players ranging from Level 10 to Level 30. In his past life, it took Levi an entire month just to reach the city gates because he was so terrified of the open-world mobs. Today, it was just a casual afternoon stroll.
The scenery slowly shifted from standard beginner forests to the Windswept Plains. The zone lived up to its name. A constant, howling breeze pushed against Levi’s avatar, making his coarse peasant tunic flap aggressively. The grass here was tall, pale yellow, and hid a massive population of Level 9 and 10 beasts.
For the average player, walking through this zone solo was a guaranteed trip back to the respawn point. The plains were crawling with packs of wild dogs and massive raptor-like birds. But for Levi, with his stats heavily inflated by his Silver-tier Arachnid’s Fang Scythe and his SSS-Rank talent, this wasn’t a danger zone. It was a mobile harvesting session.
He didn’t even stop walking. Whenever a Level 9 mob jumped out of the tall grass to ambush him, Levi just casually swatted it out of the air with his scythe. His 115 Total Attack completely shredded their tiny health bars in a single swing. He left a trail of dissolving polygons and dropped copper coins in his wake.
About halfway across the massive plains, the tall grass suddenly flattened out into a wide, rocky clearing. Standing right in the middle of the rocks, chewing on some virtual roots, was exactly what Levi had been hoping to run into.
A Level 10 Elite.
It was an Iron-Hide Boar. The thing was the size of a minivan, covered in thick, metallic gray bristles that looked like iron spikes. It had two massive tusks curving out of its lower jaw.
[Iron-Hide Boar] [Level: 10 | Elite] [HP: 1,200 | ATK: 55 | DEF: 50]
Levi stopped at the edge of the clearing and rested the heavy silver scythe on his shoulder. He looked at the boss’s stats and actually smiled. This specific beast was designed by the developers to be a massive wall for early players. It was meant to test a full 5-man party’s armor-penetration capabilities. If your group didn’t have a rogue or a mage to bypass that fat 50 Defense, you were going to be sitting here dealing 1 damage per hit until the boar got bored and killed you.
"Good thing I brought a can opener," Levi muttered to himself.
His Arachnid’s Fang Scythe naturally ignored 15% of enemy defense. Levi ran the quick math in his head. The Boar’s 50 Defense reduced by 15% dropped it down to a flat 42 Defense.
His own Total Attack was sitting at a massive 115. Subtracting that 42 Defense meant his basic physical strikes would hit for exactly 73 Damage. Since he and the boar were both exactly Level 10, there was no annoying Level Suppression penalty to worry about. He was going to hit it for full value.
Levi stepped on a dry branch, snapping it loudly to get the beast’s attention.
The Iron-Hide Boar stopped chewing. It turned its head, its little red eyes locking onto Levi. It let out a squeal and scraped its front hoof against the dirt, and charged.
The system flagged the attack as [Tusk Sweep]. The boar closed the distance incredibly fast, lowering its head to rip Levi in half!
But Levi’s Agility was sitting at 18. His Speed was 18. To him, the massive boar looked like it was charging through thick mud. He didn’t even use his Phantom Step to teleport. He just waited until the tusks were a foot away from his chest and casually stepped to the right.
The boar blew right past him, entirely missing the attack.
Levi spun on his heel and brought his scythe down hard on the boar’s exposed flank!
[-73]
He immediately ripped the blade out and swung again before the beast could even hit the brakes.
[-73]
The two basic strikes dealt 146 damage in total. More importantly, the jagged silver blade caught on the iron bristles and ripped them out, instantly triggering the scythe’s passive bleed effect. A tiny red teardrop icon popped up over the boar’s head, ticking for 5 true damage every single second.
The boar squealed in pain and slammed its hooves into the dirt to stop its momentum. It tried to turn around, but Levi was already dumping 10 Mana into his core skill.
"Reaping Arc!"
The silver scythe ignited with a bloody red aura. Levi unleashed a massive horizontal wave of energy that crashed directly into the boar’s face.
Math time. His 115 Attack multiplied by the 1.8 Reaping Arc modifier gave him 207 raw damage. Minus the boar’s 42 effective Defense, the final skill damage was a heavy 165.
[-165]
The boar’s health bar took a massive dive, dropping to 889 HP in just a few seconds of combat.
But the elite wasn’t just a punching bag. Enraged by the massive damage, the boar didn’t bother trying to charge again. It simply reared up on its hind legs and violently slammed its front hooves into the rocky ground.
It was an AoE shockwave attack. The ground shattered, sending a ripple of kinetic force outward in a massive circle.
Levi tried to jump backward, but the radius of the stomp was too wide. The shockwave caught his legs, completely knocking his avatar off balance.
The pain engine inside his NerveDive helmet sent a sharp, bruising ache through his shins. The game calculated the hit. The boar had 55 Attack. Levi’s Vitality gave him a base Defense of 14.
55 minus 14 meant he took 41 damage.
A red [-41] floated over his head, dropping his health down from 280 to 239.
"I really hate unavoidable AoE mechanics," Levi grumbled, quickly regaining his footing.
He didn’t panic. Taking 41 damage was nothing with a 280 health pool. He just tightened his grip on his weapon and jumped right back into the fight. He perfectly cycled his cooldowns. He would wait for the boar to try and gore him, use his 18 Speed to sidestep, land a couple of basic physical strikes, and then punish it with a Reaping Arc.
The fight fell into a loud, brutal rhythm of grinding metal and flashing red light. Levi systematically repeated his combo four times in a row. He kept the 5 DMG/sec bleed active the entire time, letting it chew through the boar’s health while he danced around the heavy tusks.
He ended up taking one more glancing hit from another AoE stomp, eating another 41 damage and dropping his health to 198.
But that was all the boar could manage. On the final rotation, Levi completely depleted its health bar with a heavy, two-handed basic swing to the skull.
The Iron-Hide Boar let out a pathetic squeal, its legs giving out as it collapsed onto the rocks. A second later, it shattered into a mountain of blue polygons.
A thick, crimson aura immediately ripped itself out of the dissolving corpse and shot directly into Levi’s chest. The golden notification chimed in his ear.
[Supreme Harvester triggered.] [Iron-Hide Boar’s primary stat is VIT (40).] [You have plundered 5% of its core stat.] [Gained +2 VIT permanently!]
Levi let out a breath and wiped the virtual sweat off his forehead. He opened his stats. His Vitality bumped up from 14 to 16. In this game, every point of VIT gave 20 Max HP. His health pool instantly expanded from 280 to a solid 320.
He walked over to the loot pile. He picked up a small cache of silver coins and a basic Bronze-tier item called [Iron Boar Tusk]. It was a crafting material, completely useless to him right now, but he tossed it into his inventory anyway to sell later.
He pulled a minor health potion off his belt, popped the cork, and drank the red liquid. He waited a few seconds for his health to slowly tick back up to full.
"Alright, playtime is over," Levi said, looking out across the endless plains. "Time to hit the city."
He spent the next few hours walking the rest of the way to the City of Thresholds. To make sure he was maximizing his time, he didn’t avoid the normal mobs anymore. He actively hunted down exactly 100 normal Level 10 Plains Stalkers. They were fragile, annoying bird-monsters that died in two hits, but they granted exactly 300 XP each.
It was a completely mindless grind. By the time he finally saw the massive, towering stone walls of the city on the horizon, he had completely zoned out. But the math was totally worth it. 100 kills gave him a massive 30,000 XP block, pushing his total progression up to 31,000 out of the 40,000 he needed to hit Level 11.
He walked up to the massive iron gates of the city, totally ignoring the NPC guards standing watch, and stepped inside.
