Free Web NovelChapter 20: [20]: The Vigor of the Harvest, Mass Genocide
The Blighted Treant was fully dissolved, leaving behind a massive crater in the toxic mud. Before Levi could even walk over to the loot, the familiar, violent crimson aura erupted from the center of the crater.
It swirled into a localized tornado of blood-red light, ripping through the toxic fog before slamming directly into Levi’s chest with the force of a physical punch.
The golden system notification chimed loudly in his ears.
[Supreme Harvester triggered.]
[Blighted Treant’s primary stat is STR (100).] [You have plundered 5% of its core stat.] [Gained +5 STR permanently!]
Levi let out a sharp laugh, rolling his shoulders as the raw physical power forced its way into his avatar’s code. His Strength stat instantly jumped from 40 to 45 without him having to grind a single point of experience.
"That is the good stuff," Levi said, shaking the digital fatigue out of his hands.
He walked over to the loot pile.
The Treant had dropped a massive amount of generic wood crafting materials, which Levi ignored entirely, and a very heavy pouch of silver coins. But buried underneath a pile of rotted leaves were three small, glowing item boxes.
Levi popped them open. Inside sat three identical rings. They looked like they were woven out of living, green vines, pulsing with a faint emerald light.
[Bronze Ring of the Sapling] [Rarity: Bronze] [Effect: +5 STR, +10 Mana]
Levi picked them up and weighed them in his hand. In Aethelgard, players only had two ring slots. Equipping two of these would give him +10 STR and +20 Mana. It was a decent boost for a beginner, but it was mathematically inefficient. Why settle for two decent rings when you could have one broken ring?
He immediately opened his status menu and pulled up the Boundless Fusion interface. The three golden slots materialized in the air.
He dropped the three Bronze rings into the slots and tapped the ’Fuse’ button.
A brilliant, emerald-green light illuminated the dark, toxic swamp. The three rings melted together, intertwining like living snakes. The vines thickened, turning into a polished, solid band of deep green metal. The system chimed as the new item dropped into Levi’s open palm.
[Ring of Vigor] [Rarity: Silver] [Effect: +15 STR, +50 Mana]
"Look at those numbers," Levi grinned like a madman.
He slipped the Silver ring onto his right index finger. The stats hit his character sheet like a freight train.
He opened his menu to review the math. His base Strength was 40. He just gained 5 from the Elite plunder, bringing it to 45. Add the massive +15 from the Ring of Vigor, and his total Strength hit exactly 60.
Because Base Attack was calculated by multiplying Strength by two, his Base Attack was now 120. Adding the 45 Attack from his Arachnid’s Fang Scythe pushed his Total Attack to an absolutely ridiculous 165.
His Mana pool also exploded.
His base 150 Mana combined with the ring’s +50 Mana pushed his maximum fuel tank to a clean 200. He now had significantly more breathing room to keep Siphon Aura running and spam Phantom Step without having to chug expensive potions every thirty seconds.
Levi closed his interface and gripped his scythe. He felt significantly heavier, more planted. His damage output had vastly improved in the span of two minutes.
He turned away from the Treant’s crater and headed back out into the main areas of the Blighted Marches. He needed to test his new numbers.
He found a Level 18 Plague Rat sniffing around a puddle of acid.
Levi didn’t even sneak up on it.
He just walked right up to the massive, infected rodent and swung his scythe with a basic physical attack.
The math processed instantly. The rat had 60 Defense. His scythe ignored 15%, dropping it to 51. Levi’s new Total Attack was 165. 165 minus 51 left 114 raw damage. The 25% Level Suppression penalty reduced it, leaving exactly 85 Final Damage.
[-85]
The rat shrieked, nearly half its health bar vanishing from a single, casual auto-attack. Levi didn’t even let it turn around. He swung twice more, dropping the rat to zero health in less than three seconds.
[System Notification: Slain 1x Level 18 Plague Rat. Gained 1,500 XP.]
Levi stared at the dissolving polygons. "Eighty-five damage a swing through a five-level suppression penalty. Yeah. It’s time to farm."
He didn’t pull them one by one anymore. With 200 Mana and 165 Attack, he was an absolute juggernaut.
Levi spent the entire night turning the Blighted Marches into a literal slaughterhouse. He would sprint through the toxic fog, yelling and throwing rocks to intentionally pull the aggro of five or six Plague Rats at a time.
When they swarmed him, trying to bite him with their venomous teeth, he just toggled on Siphon Aura to out-heal their chip damage and dropped a Reaping Arc right on their heads. The skill was now hitting for over 230 damage per cast. He was completely deleting packs of mobs that were five levels higher than him.
The physical toll of grinding in VR for hours on end was severe. The helmet simulated exhaustion perfectly. Levi’s real-world shoulders ached, and his legs felt heavy, but the constant stream of massive XP drops kept his brain flooded with dopamine.
He fell into a trance. Pull, group, Reaping Arc, basic slashes, loot. Drink a mana potion. Repeat.
He killed fifty rats. Then a hundred. Then a hundred and fifty.
By the time the digital sun began to rise, turning the sickly purple sky into a bruised orange, Levi was standing in a massive clearing littered with dropped copper coins and rat tails.
The golden pillar of light finally crashed down from the sky, washing away the hours of built-up fatigue.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 14.]
Levi let out a heavy, exhausted sigh and dismissed his scythe back into his inventory. He opened his progression log. His massive night-long grind had yielded over 110,000 XP, easily pushing him past the 130,000 mark required to hit Level 14.
He now needed a staggering 180,000 XP to reach Level 15.
Level 15 was the milestone. It was the level Silas told him he needed to reach before he could enter the Shrine of the Hollow and take his SSS-Class trial.
He had 5 free stat points sitting in his menu.
He knew exactly what the trial entailed. He had to survive against a Level 50 Avatar of the Hollow King for exactly three minutes. He wasn’t supposed to kill it, that was mathematically impossible. He just had to not die.
Dodging was going to be critical, but taking an unavoidable hit was guaranteed in a closed-room boss fight. He needed his health pool to be as fat as mathematically possible.
He dumped all 5 points directly into Vitality.
His VIT bumped from 16 to 21. Because each point of VIT equaled 20 HP, his base health increased by 100 points. Combined with his Obsidian Carapace armor, his Max HP jumped from 420 to a massive 520.
He quickly checked his Defense calculation. His 21 Vitality acted as his base defense. Added to the 30 Defense from his armor, his total Defense bumped up to exactly 51.
"Five hundred and twenty health," Levi muttered, looking at his updated stat sheet. "If that Level 50 boss hits me, it’s still going to chunk me for almost everything I have. I’m going to need some serious defensive consumables."
He closed his menus and looked toward the edge of the Blighted Marches. Far in the distance, jutting out of the toxic wasteland, was a massive, dead volcano. That was his destination. The Shrine of the Hollow was waiting inside.
He checked his potion belt, cracked his neck, and started the long walk toward the mountain. He was one level away from breaking the game.
