Free Web NovelChapter 15: [15]: Treading the Tides, Mass Harvesting
Levi stood over the dissolving body of Slark the Submerged, catching his breath as his virtual lungs burned from the simulated exertion. The massive fish-man boss completely shattered into thousands of glowing blue polygons, raining down a massive pile of loot onto the stone altar.
"Finally," Levi muttered. He wiped a smudge of swamp mud off his face and immediately dropped to one knee to dig through the rewards.
First, he grabbed the pile of gold and silver coins. His inventory counter ticked up nicely, adding a solid chunk of wealth to his already ridiculous bankroll. Next, he pushed aside a bunch of generic crafting materials—mostly useless fish scales, glowing coral, and rusted metal scraps that he could sell to an NPC later.
He was looking for gear. Specifically, gear he could fuse.
At the bottom of the loot pile, sitting in three separate wooden item boxes, were exactly what he needed. Three identical pairs of boots. They looked terrible—made of soggy, dark green leather with bits of swamp moss hanging off the heels—but the stats were all that mattered.
[Bronze Swamp Striders] [Rarity: Bronze] [Effect: +4 AGI, +2 Speed]
"Three drops of the exact same item from one boss kill," Levi grinned, shaking his head. "The game’s drop rate algorithm is definitely trying to compensate for the fact that I’m completely solo. In a five-man party, these would get split up. Here, I take the whole pot."
He didn’t even bother trying them on. He immediately opened his status menu and pulled up the Boundless Fusion interface. The familiar golden window popped up in the center of his vision.
Levi dragged the three pairs of Bronze Swamp Striders from his inventory slots and dropped them into the three empty fusion slots. He tapped the ’Fuse’ button.
The three pairs of soggy leather boots dissolved into a blinding, silver light. The digital sound of rushing water and chiming metal echoed across the empty altar. The light compressed, stretching and morphing the material into something completely different. When the glow finally faded, a single, sleek pair of boots floated in the air.
They no longer looked like pieces of swamp trash. They were made of deep, midnight-blue leather, reinforced with polished silver plating around the shins and toes.
Levi grabbed them out of the air and read the new tooltip.
[Boots of the Deep Tide] [Rarity: Silver] [Effect: +12 AGI, +5 Speed] [Passive: +5% Dodge Chance]
"A flat five percent chance to completely avoid any incoming attack," Levi whistled. "Combined with my raw speed, physical attacks are basically a joke now."
He immediately equipped the new boots. The moment he strapped them on, a massive rush of energy flowed up his legs. His avatar felt incredibly light, almost as if gravity had been turned down a few notches.
He opened his stat sheet to run the math. His Agility had previously been sitting at 26 thanks to the plunder bonus from the boss. Adding the massive +12 Agility from the Silver-tier boots caused his total AGI to skyrocket straight to 38.
Because Speed was a derived stat heavily influenced by Agility and raw gear bonuses, his new Speed calculation was insane. He took his base 26 Speed, added the +5 flat Speed bonus from the boots, and factored in the massive Agility spike. His final Speed stat hit exactly 43.
To put that into perspective, the average Level 11 player who dumped their points evenly would be walking around with maybe 15 Speed. Levi was nearly three times faster than anyone else in the game right now.
He decided to test it out. Levi stood at the edge of the stone altar, looking out across the deep, murky water of the swamp lake. He gripped his silver scythe, leaned forward, and sprinted.
His boots hit the surface of the water. Instead of sinking immediately into the deep lake, his 43 Speed allowed him to physically hydroplane for a brief moment. He ran straight across the top of the water for about three full seconds, covering nearly twenty yards before the game’s physics engine finally caught up to him and he dropped knee-deep into the muck.
"That is totally broken," Levi laughed, splashing back toward the shallower end of the swamp. "If I push my Agility high enough, I won’t even need a mount. I’ll just run across the ocean."
With his new Silver-tier boots equipped and his mobility pushed to the absolute extreme, Levi wasn’t ready to head back to the city just yet. He checked his XP bar. He was sitting at 21,000 out of the 60,000 required to hit Level 12.
He looked around the Drowned Hollows. The boss was dead, but the ruined temple area surrounding the lake was still crawling with dozens of Level 12 Murk Murlocs.
"Time to maximize efficiency," Levi said, cracking his neck.
He didn’t just pull three or four Murlocs at a time anymore. That was too slow. With his current speed and dodge chance, he could handle a much bigger crowd.
Levi splashed through the swamp water, intentionally making as much noise as humanly possible. He ran in a massive circle around the ruined temple pillars, shouting and swinging his scythe to draw aggro.
"Hey, ugly!" Levi yelled, throwing a copper coin at a Murloc’s head.
The fish-men shrieked and began chasing him. One by one, their red aggro markers locked onto him. Within two minutes, Levi had gathered a massive train of exactly ten Murk Murlocs. They were all screaming, splashing, and throwing their crude bone spears at his back.
But the spears didn’t even come close. With 43 Speed, Levi was completely out-pacing their projectile tracking. The spears splashed harmlessly into the water a full yard behind his heels.
Levi suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and spun around. The massive clump of ten Murlocs crashed into each other, trying to stop their momentum.
"Phantom Step," Levi said.
He burned 20 Mana, his body dissolving into dark shadow. He instantly teleported directly into the dead center of the chaotic Murloc pile. Before they could even raise their weapons to stab him, Levi dumped another 10 Mana.
"Reaping Arc!"
The Arachnid’s Fang Scythe ignited with a violent, bloody red light. Levi spun in a tight circle, dragging the heavy blade right through the entire clump of fish-men.
Because he was Level 11 fighting Level 12s, he still had a minor 10% suppression penalty, but his raw damage was so high it didn’t matter. His 115 Attack multiplied by 1.8 gave him 207 damage. The scythe ignored 15% of their 30 Defense, dropping it to 25. Subtracting that left 182. Applying the 10% penalty gave him exactly 163 final skill damage per target.
Ten massive red numbers exploded into the air at the exact same time.
[-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163] [-163]
The sheer force of the AoE strike chunked over a quarter of their health bars simultaneously. The Murlocs screamed, entirely thrown off balance.
Levi didn’t even bother turning on his Siphon Aura. He just went to work with his basic physical attacks. He swung the silver scythe in wide, brutal arcs, hitting two or three Murlocs with every single swing. His basic strikes dealt 81 damage a piece.
The fish-men tried to fight back. They thrust their spears at him from all sides. But with his 43 Speed and the 5% passive dodge chance from his boots, Levi was a complete ghost. He weaved his head past one spear, sidestepped another, and watched as the system literally forced a third spear to miss his chest completely, flashing a white [Dodge!] text over his head.
He carved them to pieces. The scythe’s passive bleed triggered constantly, ticking for 5 true damage per second on multiple targets.
Within fifteen seconds, the entire pack of ten Murlocs collapsed into the swamp water. They shattered into a massive cloud of blue pixels.
[System Notification: Slain 10x Murk Murlocs. Gained 3,000 XP.]
"Three thousand XP in fifteen seconds," Levi smirked, looking at the empty stretch of water. "This is how you play the game."
He spent the next three hours turning the Drowned Hollows upside down. He ran massive loops, grouping up ten to fifteen Murlocs at a time, blinking into the center, and shredding them with Reaping Arc and basic attacks. The entire zone became a repetitive, highly efficient meat grinder.
He didn’t stop until he had completely cleared the temple area of spawns. He slaughtered exactly 150 Murlocs.
The massive influx of 45,000 XP completely filled his progression bar. The glorious golden pillar of light crashed down from the digital sky, entirely restoring his health and mana pools.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 12.]
Levi rested his scythe on his shoulder and pulled up his stat menu. He had 5 new free stat points to allocate. His Agility and Speed were completely fine for now. What he needed was to keep his raw damage scaling up so he could handle the suppression penalties of the higher-level zones.
He took all 5 stat points and dumped them straight into Strength.
His Strength bumped from 35 to 40. That increased his base attack to 80. Combined with the 45 Attack from his Silver-tier scythe, his new Total Attack hit a massive 125.
"Perfect," Levi nodded, closing the menu.
He was incredibly fast and he hit like an absolute truck. The only issue he had left was his raw physical defense. Having only 16 Defense meant if a boss actually managed to hit him cleanly, he was going to lose a huge chunk of his 320 health pool. He needed some real armor.
He turned his back on the Drowned Hollows and began the fast trek back to the City of Thresholds. He had plenty of gold to spend, and he knew exactly how to exploit the newbie crafting market to get exactly what he wanted.
—-
Updated Stat Sheet:
- Name: Levi | Level: 12
- Class: None | Talent: [Supreme Harvester (SSS-Rank)]
- HP: 320/320 | Mana: 100/100
- STR: 40 | AGI: 38 | VIT: 16 | INT: 10 | LUK: 5
- Attack: 125 | Defense: 16 | Speed: 43
- Core Skills: [Reaping Arc], [Phantom Step], [Siphon Aura].
