Free Web NovelChapter 21: [21]: The Volcano’s Edge, Grinding the Ashen Ghouls
Levi finally reached the coordinates Silas had given him. He stopped at the edge of a massive, dead volcano that loomed at the far border of the Blighted Marches. The toxic, yellow fog thinned out here, replaced by falling gray ash that coated the digital ground like dirty snow.
Built directly into the side of the scorched mountain was a set of massive, obsidian double-doors. They were completely smooth, reflecting the bruised purple sky above. There was no handle, no keyhole, just a faint, dark energy pulsing from the cracks in the stone.
Levi walked up the ash-covered slope and pressed his hand against the cold obsidian.
[System Notification: Access Denied.]
[The Shrine of the Hollow requires the initiate to be exactly Level 15. Your current level is 14.]
"Of course," Levi muttered, dropping his hand. "Game developers love arbitrary level gates."
He opened his progression menu. He was sitting at the bottom of Level 14. To cross the threshold and hit Level 15, he needed exactly 180,000 XP. In a normal VRMMORPG, grinding almost two hundred thousand experience points would take a dedicated party several days of optimized dungeon runs.
Levi just turned around and looked down at the base of the volcano.
Roaming the ash-covered plains in massive, shuffling packs were the local mobs. They were humanoid figures, completely charred black, with glowing embers for eyes. They dragged rusted iron chains behind them, their jaws unhinged in a permanent, silent scream.
[Ashen Ghoul]
[Level: 20]
[HP: 2,500 | ATK: 120 | DEF: 70]
"That works," Levi said, summoning his Silver-tier Arachnid’s Fang Scythe from his inventory. The heavy weapon materialized in his hands, its jagged edge gleaming in the dim light.
He took a moment to run the combat math before diving in. This was the difference between a top-tier player and a casual. If you didn’t know your numbers, you died.
He was Level 14, and the Ghouls were Level 20. That six-level gap meant the game was going to slap him with a flat 30% Level Suppression damage penalty.
’Let’s break it down,’ Levi thought, his eyes tracking a pack of four Ghouls about thirty yards away. ’Their base Defense is 70. My scythe’s passive ignores 15% of that. That drops their effective Defense down to 60.’
He checked his own offensive stats. His Total Attack was sitting at a monstrous 165 thanks to his Ring of Vigor and his plundered Strength.
165 Attack minus 60 Defense meant he would deal 105 raw damage per swing.
’Now apply the 30% penalty,’ Levi calculated. ’105 multiplied by 0.7 gives me exactly 73 Final Damage per basic strike.’
It wasn’t a one-shot, but dealing 73 damage per basic attack to a mob six levels higher was completely unheard of. He looked at the defensive side of the equation. If a Ghoul managed to hit him, their 120 Attack would go up against his 66 Defense.
120 minus 66 meant he would take 54 damage per hit.
With his newly expanded Max HP sitting at 520, he could easily eat about nine direct hits before he had to worry about dying. And that wasn’t even factoring in his healing. He opened his menu and toggled on [Siphon Aura]. The green light washed over his boots, and his mana began ticking down by 2 points a second.
"Time to go to work," Levi said.
He sprinted down the ash-covered slope, his 43 Speed making him a blur against the gray landscape. He didn’t bother trying to be stealthy. He ran directly into the center of the four Ashen Ghouls, intentionally kicking up a cloud of ash to get their attention.
The Ghouls shrieked, a sound like scraping metal, and swung their rusted chains.
Levi ducked under the first chain, letting it sail over his head. He spun on his heel and dumped 10 Mana.
"Reaping Arc!"
The scythe erupted with a bloody red aura. He carved a wide, three-meter horizontal wave of energy through the pack.
[-132] [-132] [-132] [-132]
The AoE skill hit significantly harder than his basic strikes, chunking a solid portion of their 2,500 HP bars. The sheer kinetic force of the skill staggered them, interrupting their attack animations.
Levi didn’t stop.
He stepped into the closest Ghoul and unleashed a rapid flurry of basic physical attacks. He swung the scythe like a pendulum, slashing back and forth across the monster’s charred chest.
[-73] [-73] [-73]
His weapon’s passive triggered immediately. The small bleeding teardrop icon popped up over the Ghoul’s head.
[-5] [-5]
The bleed dealt 5 true damage per second, completely ignoring the annoying 30% suppression penalty.
One of the other Ghouls recovered and whipped its chain sideways. The heavy iron links smashed into Levi’s back. The NerveDive helmet simulated a sharp, stinging welt across his shoulder blades.
[-54]
His health dropped from 520 down to 466. But exactly one second later, his Siphon Aura pulsed. Because he was in combat, the skill automatically healed him.
[+15]
His health bounced back up to 481.
Levi grinned. He realized that as long as he didn’t get surrounded by ten of these things at once, his aura would completely offset the damage over the course of the fight.
He used [Phantom Step], burning 20 Mana to dissolve into a dark shadow. He instantly teleported five meters backward, creating space between him and the swinging chains. He waited exactly two seconds for his Reaping Arc cooldown to finish, then lunged back in.
It was a slow, methodical grind. It took him nearly forty seconds of relentless dodging, striking, and refreshing the bleed to finally zero out the first Ghoul. It collapsed into the ash and shattered into blue polygons.
The remaining three quickly followed.
[System Notification: Slain 4x Level 20 Ashen Ghouls. Gained 6,000 XP.]
"One thousand five hundred XP per kill," Levi noted, looking at his progression bar. "I need one hundred and eighty thousand. That means I need to kill exactly one hundred and twenty of these things."
He pulled a top-tier mana potion from his quick-belt and downed it. The blue liquid instantly refilled his mana pool, keeping his Siphon Aura running smoothly.
"This is going to be a long day," he sighed.
For the next ten hours in the real world, Levi turned into a machine.
The sensory feedback of the VR helmet was grueling. His real-world arms felt heavy and cramped from simulating the weight of the massive scythe. His stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything in his apartment since he bought the NerveDive helmet. But he refused to log out. The apocalypse wasn’t going to wait for him to grab a snack.
He fell into an absolute flow state. He would run across the ash plains, pull a pack of three to five Ghouls, group them up, and shred them with Reaping Arc. When they swung their chains, he relied on his 43 Speed to sidestep or Phantom Step through the attacks.
Whenever he took a hit for 54 damage, he just kept swinging, letting his 15 HP/sec Siphon Aura slowly patch him back up.
Dodge. Slash. Bleed. Drink a potion. Repeat.
The ash plains became a massive graveyard of dropped copper coins and useless Ghoul rags. He killed fifty. Then eighty. Then a hundred.
By the ninth hour, his brain was practically fried from the repetitive motion, but the dopamine hit of watching his XP bar rapidly fill kept him going. He was completely breaking the natural progression speed of the server. Normal players were probably still celebrating hitting Level 6 in a group of five. Levi was soloing Level 20 mobs.
He pulled the final pack of four Ghouls. He didn’t even bother dodging their first attacks. He just face-tanked the chain strikes, dropped a Reaping Arc, and went completely wild with basic attacks to finish the job faster.
The final Ghoul shattered into blue pixels.
Instantly, a blinding, glorious golden pillar of light crashed down from the dark sky. The light washed over Levi’s avatar, instantly clearing all of his simulated physical fatigue. The heavy, aching feeling in his virtual arms vanished. His health and mana pools snapped back to 100%.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 15.]
Levi let out a massive, exhausted breath and dropped the head of his scythe into the ash. He pulled up his menu. He had officially hit the milestone. He had 5 new free stat points waiting to be allocated.
He stared at the blinking stat menu for a few seconds. In Starfall, assigning Vitality instantly increased your maximum HP. But what most casual players didn’t realize was that it also increased your current HP by the same amount. It functioned as an emergency burst heal.
’I’m about to walk into a closed-room trial against a Level 50 boss,’ Levi thought. ’I have no idea what the exact mechanics are. If I get clipped and my health drops to zero, I’m permanently locked out of the class.’
He decided to hold the points. Having 5 stat points floating in reserve meant he had a 100 HP emergency heal that he could trigger mid-swing, bypassing potion cooldowns entirely. It was a high-tier gamer trick, and he was absolutely going to need it.
He closed the menu without spending the points.
Levi turned around and walked back up the ash-covered slope toward the dead volcano. The obsidian double-doors were still pulsing with that dark, ominous energy.
He didn’t hesitate this time. He pressed his hand flat against the cold stone.
The system didn’t reject him. A loud, deep rumbling sound shook the ground beneath his boots. The massive obsidian doors slowly ground open, scraping against the stone floor.
A pitch-black abyss waited for him inside. Levi gripped his silver scythe tightly and stepped over the threshold.
—-
Updated Stat Sheet:
- Name: Levi | Level: 15
- Class: None | Talent: [Supreme Harvester (SSS-Rank)]
- HP: 520/520 | Mana: 200/200
- STR: 60 | AGI: 38 | VIT: 21 | INT: 15 | LUK: 5
- Free Stats: 5 (Unassigned)
- Attack: 165 | Defense: 66 | Speed: 43
- Core Skills: [Reaping Arc], [Phantom Step], [Siphon Aura].
