Chapter Five: The Wind Chimes in the Breeze

After idly browsing through some other threads on the forum, Zhang Shan closed it—better to focus on grinding monsters. He was about to reach level two. Having a teammate who could withstand monster attacks made things go much faster; now he had over four hundred experience points, just a dozen or so monsters away from leveling up. It was a bit disappointing that after killing another hundred or so demonic chicks, they hadn’t dropped any gear—only copper coins.

“Hey, man, how much more experience do you need to level up?” Zhang Shan asked.

“I’m at four hundred and six now, about the same as you. Need to kill a dozen more monsters to level. The drop rate for gear is abysmal—even with our high luck stats, we haven’t seen a single piece of white gear in all this time.”

“You should be content—you at least have a shirt. In our newbie village, there can’t be many who’ve swapped out their starter cloth tunic yet.”

“Heh, just lucky, I guess. Will you switch maps after hitting level two? Grinding these demonic chicks is no challenge at all.”

“I don’t care about challenge. I’m not planning to switch. I’ll grind to level three first. Hunters have no skills yet, just basic attacks. It’s tough enough for me to solo these chicks—I wouldn’t dare try anything tougher unless you can tank and let me stand still and attack.”

“It should be a bit better after leveling up and adding some stats,” Lone Rider said in a comforting tone.

“For me, it’ll only be a slight improvement. Maybe with better movement after leveling up, I can kill chicks without taking damage—or at worst, get hit once or twice. As for level two monsters, I’m not even thinking about them unless I get some gear. Otherwise, I’ll wait until level three to switch maps.”

As they spoke, a red glow rose from Zhang Shan’s body.

System: Congratulations, player Six-Barreled Bodhisattva has reached level two. Skill point +1, all attributes +2, free attribute points +5.

“You leveled up? Heh, I’m almost there—just two more monsters.”

Zhang Shan ignored him for a moment. As for the skill point, there was only one skill available at the moment, so he could only level up “Headshot.”

Skill 1, Headshot: (Passive) Level 2. Each attack by the Hunter has a chance to trigger the Headshot effect, dealing an extra 50 damage and stunning the target for 0.05 seconds. Trigger rate: 1%.

Not bad. As expected, each skill level increases the trigger rate—if it maxes out at level ten, that’s a 5% chance, which is impressive—one in twenty shots.

He allocated all five free attribute points to Agility. His attack power was too low at the moment, and he planned to build a full-agility Hunter.

The drawbacks of a full-agility Hunter were obvious, but so were the advantages. The downside was fragility—being killed first in most cases unless he acquired some life-saving skills later. The upside was high attack power and fast attack speed.

The New World described attributes as follows: Strength increased strength-based attack power and HP; for other classes, Strength only increased HP. Agility increased agility-based attack power, attack speed, and movement speed; for other classes, it only increased attack and movement speed. Intelligence similarly increased MP, and only for intelligence-based classes did it boost attack.

As for how much attributes improved stats, nobody knew yet—the developers hadn’t published the formula. Strength and Intelligence boosting HP and MP was obvious at a glance, but Agility’s effect on attack and movement speed was imperceptible at this stage. Zhang Shan couldn’t feel any difference—probably because his agility was still too low, so the bonus to attack speed was negligible.

Perhaps it would only become noticeable later on. Which was reasonable—after all, attack speed is a core DPS stat; if Agility’s boost was obvious from the start, other classes wouldn’t stand a chance.

Check attributes:

Character: Six-Barreled Bodhisattva
Class: Hunter
Level: 2
HP: 120
MP: 60
Physical Attack: 18-22
Magic Attack: 7
Strength: 7
Agility: 17
Intelligence: 7
Defense: 3
Luck: 9 (randomly generated between 1-10; Luck is a hidden attribute and never changes)
Talent: King of Passives (When killing a monster, there is a one-in-a-million chance to randomly acquire one of the monster’s passive skills)
Skill 1, Headshot: (Passive) Level 2. Each attack by the Hunter has a chance to trigger the Headshot effect, dealing an extra 50 damage and stunning the target for 0.05 seconds. Trigger rate: 1%.
Equipment: Novice Cloth Tunic, Novice Musket.

With an attack power of twenty, killing demonic chicks would be a breeze—no more than five hits per chick, and if Headshot triggered, three would do the trick.

Looking at his experience bar: 5/1000. To reach level three from level two required a thousand experience points—soloing would mean killing two hundred demonic chicks.

“Haha, I leveled up! Six-Barreled, I’m off to find where the level two monsters are—see if any are easy to handle. If so, I’ll call you over,” Lone Rider announced, having reached level two as well.

“Alright, but make sure you can tank them—otherwise, if you have to constantly meditate to heal, it’ll be too slow.”

“I get it. I have two hundred HP and twelve defense now; I should be fine against level two monsters. Even if they hit for twenty, I’ll only lose a few HP per hit. Don’t worry, I’m off to find some monsters.” With that, he ran into the distance.

In the New World, only places players had visited were revealed on the map. So far, they’d only hunted chicks and knew nothing about other monsters’ locations. Some thieves had posted newbie village monster maps on the forum, but those required in-game currency to view—not worth it, since level two monsters had to be nearby. Finding suitable ones to grind might take a bit of searching, though.

After Lone Rider left, Zhang Shan began soloing the chicks. Though he got all the experience himself, his efficiency dropped noticeably. No matter how he maneuvered, each time he killed a chick, he’d get hit once or twice, losing seven or eight HP each time—and if unlucky and the chick used Peck, he’d take over ten damage.

With 120 HP, he couldn’t kill even ten monsters before needing to meditate and recover, which felt far less efficient than earlier when Lone Rider had tanked. Even after leveling up, he was slower than before—not acceptable.

He’d need another teammate—even someone who couldn’t tank, as long as they could contribute a few attacks. With that in mind, Zhang Shan messaged Lone Rider: “Hey, make me party leader. I’ll recruit someone else; soloing is too slow.”

OK.

System: Six-Barreled Bodhisattva, Lone Rider has transferred party leadership to you.

While grinding, Zhang Shan looked around for potential party members.

At the moment, everyone killing chicks was already in small groups. As a Hunter—a weak class in the early game—he doubted anyone would want to party with him.

He moved around while grinding, and in a secluded corner spotted a female Taoist meditating to recover HP.

From a distance, she hadn’t seemed special, but up close, Zhang Shan realized she was very beautiful, with a striking figure and delicate features.

Of course, appearance in New World could be adjusted by up to five percent, so who knew what she had changed. In this game, a character’s appearance wasn’t reliable. Even Zhang Shan himself had casually tweaked his own, making him look quite different—so much so that old acquaintances wouldn’t recognize him.

Such a beautiful woman, yet no one was helping her level up—how cruel, he thought with a laugh.

Zhang Shan ran over. “Hey, want to party up? We’ll grind faster together.”

The Taoist glanced at him without replying at first; perhaps seeing his musket, she was a bit put off. After all, the Hunter was a weak class in the early stages and not popular.

“Hmm, you’re level two already. Why are you still grinding chicks instead of fighting level two monsters?” she asked curiously.

“Even soloing level one monsters requires meditating to heal; level twos would be even tougher. For now, I’ll keep grinding these. Plus, a buddy’s off scouting for suitable level two monsters. We’ll switch when he finds them,” Zhang Shan replied.

With that, he sent a party invitation to the beauty.

System: Wind Chimes in the Breeze has joined your party. Party loot is set to split money evenly and assign items randomly.

Experience distribution was based on level—Zhang Shan, being a level higher, would get a little more. Lone Rider, though still in the party, was too far away to share experience or loot; and of course, Zhang Shan wouldn’t benefit from what Lone Rider killed.

“Stand next to me—I’ll pull the monsters over, and you just need to attack them a couple times. That way, we won’t have to sit down to recover HP,” Zhang Shan said. After partying with Lone Rider earlier, he was getting used to this teamwork of pairing with melee attackers to grind efficiently.

As for meditating to recover HP, Zhang Shan found it very annoying. If only red potions weren’t so expensive, he’d buy some to use while grinding. Once he saved up more copper coins, he’d buy some for emergencies.

Currently, he had 116 copper coins in his bag, had completed 104 demon-slaying quests, totaling 220 copper coins. A small red potion cost ten copper and restored 50 HP. Not much to buy, and not very useful.

Suddenly, Wind Chimes in the Breeze cast Blessing of Attack on Zhang Shan, boosting his attack to 20-27. Now, he could kill a demonic chick in four hits, and with her chipping in, they could kill them without taking any damage—a smooth process.

Wind Chimes in the Breeze was a cool, aloof beauty, not much of a talker. Zhang Shan wasn’t very chatty either, so they just quietly farmed monsters side by side, not saying a word—the atmosphere a bit awkward.

Feeling bored, Zhang Shan opened the regional chat channel to see what others were talking about.

Since no one had left the newbie village yet, the largest chat range was the local area. Broader communication cost money—world chat messages cost one gold coin for the first message, then ten times more for each subsequent message. At this point, everyone was broke and couldn’t afford it.

Newbie Village 10081 Chat Channel:

Wind and Cloud Secretary: “Buying copper coins and all types of white gear. 100 copper for ten blue coins. White gear, 100 each, buying in bulk. Don’t worry about me not having money—just worry about not having goods. Offline trading, instant payment. Message me quickly, price drops this afternoon.”

“Anyone want to party up to farm chicks?”

“What’s your class? Invite me.”

“Rogue here, add as friend and invite me.”

“Why party with a rogue? I’m a rogue too—what’s the point of two rogues?”

“Still better than soloing.”

“Alright, let’s party up.”

Two poor rogues—probably still level one—even worse off than Zhang Shan was at that stage. At least he could solo a chick; for rogues, it was tough. The chicks’ stats were similar to a level one rogue’s, but don’t forget the chicks had skills. If they crit, you’d be lying dead for sure.

Zhang Shan continued watching the chat for a bit but found nothing new—it was all people buying gear and coins or looking for parties. Which made sense—no one was above level two yet, and nothing dramatic was happening. There weren’t even any conflicts; with so many demonic chicks to go around, there was no fighting over monsters or PKing—at least not for now.