FB: Chapter 69 – The Lucky Bunnies

“WRR! WRR! WRR!” the Screeching Birds in the Blink Forest were giving me a headache along with the Giant Strobe Beetles. I raced through the Blink Forest as quickly as possible and finally arrived at the Poppy Fields that would knock out anyone under level 60.

I was level 72, so I wasn’t concerned about the area effect. I looked at the happy level 120 Lucky Bunnies hopping about through the massive field of flowers in the middle of the Blink Forest. At least I was out of that nightmare inducing hell.

Most people who reached this place thought it was dangerous due to how peaceful it looked in the middle of such a horrible forest. They would be both wrong and right. I could walk through the field and the Lucky Bunnies wouldn’t do anything. There were no other monsters here.

The moment I attacked a Lucky Bunny, just that one became hostile. Their Luck stat was estimated to be around 20,000. All their other stats were incredibly sub-par, except for the boost in movement speed they had. When attacked, the Lucky Bunny would leap away and then launch itself at the attacking player.

All hits would end up being critical or super-critical hits due to the amount of Luck they had. And if someone used an area attack, they would be jumped to death by multiple Lucky Bunnies who were quite small and skilled at dodging. They did drop the Bunny Paw, an item which could be turned into various Luck boosting items, like rings or pendants.

I had two open ring slots and getting enough Bunny Paws would be quite useful in boosting my Luck stat even further than it already was. The big problem was actually killing the Lucky Bunnies. Due to their high Luck stat, no attack would be critical or super-critical on them. Even my Luck stat would be crushed under theirs.

They were non-hostile, so I could even pick one up to pet it and it would do nothing unless attacked. Many people thought they could pick them up and try to strangle them to death. That was where their only other skill came into play, Lucky Escape. They would teleport in a random direction while dealing massive damage to anything they were next to. Great for escaping traps and cages.

Then they would be hostile and kill the player who had tried to kidnap them. The trick to actually killing them was poisoned food. Poisoned carrots to be specific. An alchemist had to combine the poison and the carrots and that wasn’t cheap.

Each poisoned carrot cost me 2.5 gold. I had purchased 140,000 poisoned carrots. That had cost me 3,500 platinum, which I had to take a loan out for. I had a year to pay back 4,000 platinum to the Traders Union, but I wasn’t too concerned. At least that was what I told myself. I would make that money back in time. What was more important was for me to kill 140,000 Lucky Bunnies and earn around 20,000,000 experience.

The Lucky Bunnies ranged from level 105 to 115 in most cases. It was common practice to round up to their highest possible level when talking about a monster, which was why they were considered level 120. This was done for safety reasons in most cases. It was important to understand this fact, since once I hit level 95 the experience I got would start to drop off. With my 28 days, I needed to kill at least 5,000 Lucky Bunnies per day to remain on schedule. A poisoned carrot was eaten and the Lucky Bunny died five minutes later as its food meter quickly depleted which in turn hurt its health.

The Lucky Bunnies aggression didn’t activate from starving. Since I had fed it, the Lucky Bunny didn’t connect me to how hungry it became, which in turn depleted its HP. While the Lucky Bunny didn’t take that into account the program governing experience did, which gave me credit for the kill. All my skill slots were filled with Gambler’s Commitment to boost my Luck as high as possible, but I still didn’t get a Bunny Paw drop. In fact, there were no drops.

The higher level monsters were much more stingy on their drops, even with high Luck stat, the Lucky Bunnies were the worst, since their Luck countered my Luck. I began tossing out poisoned carrots in every direction, making sure to spread them out, so no Lucky Bunny ate more than one.

The reason other people didn’t grind levels like this was the expense. Even a super-guild would balk at such a huge expenditure to level up one individual. In their mind it wasn’t worthwhile to make such an investment when a player would go out and grind, leveling up on their own.

Power leveling like this was seen as a good way to lose money. If a person couldn’t fight, then did they really need to power level? A higher level wouldn’t make them a better fighter. And if they were a good fighter, they didn’t need to level like this. Also, super-guilds preferred teams. If they did this for one member of a team, they would have to do it for all. Then the other teams would ask for this kind of treatment.

Soon one person would become ten people and the price would soar from 4,000 platinum for one person to 40,000 platinum for ten people. But the prices wouldn’t remain static with such large purchases of this specific poison and carrots. So, the price would be around 50,000 to 55,000 platinum for ten people and it would only get worse. Or the super-guild could avoid the entire situation and not spend anything.

Occasionally a player would find an exploit like this and have the money to make it work. Once they caught up with the top people, they had more leverage in working out a contract with a guild. Discovering something like this was not easy. One had to know about this location, these monsters, and exactly how to cheese them. That was in addition to having the resources to make such a thing work. Many people went bankrupt attempting such strategies.

In general such players who did strategies like this were often looked down on and it was correct to do so. Since they tended to not be as good in combat, desperate to get any edge possible. The only difference was that I stood in front of everyone else as the undefeated Foxy Blight. I needed every advantage I could get to keep my winning streak alive.

I walked through the Poppy Fields throwing out poisoned carrots. One by one the Lucky Bunnies died. In one day, I managed to kill 6,412. A bit more than I was hoping for, which was nice. I had only gotten 47 Bunny Paws and three junk rank Lucky Escape skill shards, which was a horrendously small drop rate for the number of monsters I had killed.

Once that was done, I set up a monster repelling ward on the ground. It would keep natural spawns away from the tent I was setting up. There was nothing else but Lucky Bunnies in the Poppy Field, but I wanted to make sure one didn’t run into the tent by accident, killing me while I was logged off. I could have used a cabin to be completely sure, but the cost was a lot more. Ten silver for a single use tent versus ten platinum for a single use cabin.

I had a massive debt I needed to pay off to the Traders Union of 4,000 platinum in one in game year. That meant three real world months. There was stuff I could sell, but I didn’t really want to. My hope was to recoup a lot of money in the upcoming tournament. For 20 platinum per entry fee, with half going to the prize pool, with around 40 entrants besides myself, that would be 400 platinum. I would be betting another couple hundred platinum, which would net me around another 400 platinum. The Fanged Fox Guild owed me around another 400 platinum. That was only 30% of the amount needed to pay back the loan.

Well that was a problem for future Foxy Blight. I would use a third of the time I had until the loan came due, killing Lucky Bunnies and leveling up. And I could always get an extension on the loan if I paid 500 platinum to get another real world three months. That was probably what I would have to do, until I worked off the debt.

I had chosen the Lucky Bunnies over something like the Mega Oozes, since they had Luck focused drops. The Bunny Paws would be quite useful long term to get rings crafted out of to boost my Luck even more. Day after day I killed the Lucky Bunnies all over the massive Poppy Field were poisoned. I continued leveling up and collecting their drops.

Henry gave me regular updates during this time period. Rebecca had been moved to another show on ENN discussing fashion. She didn’t whore herself out, which was a shame. Getting revenge was always nice. My actions dominated the news cycle for quite a while, with people favorable to me talking about how she had published false negative articles about me.

The tournament I was hosting was the next big thing. A couple of Champions spoke how they were going to crush me easily. I had Henry push back on them, challenging them to larger wagers. Most refused but a couple accepted, putting up more money thinking they had a chance. Any big shot who mentioned that they thought I would be defeated, Henry arranged for them to be publicly harassed on why they wouldn’t put up a large bet against me if they were so sure.

I needed every bit of money I could get back to pay for the loan. Even if these efforts would only amount to around another 400 platinum in the end, that was another 400 platinum. While the Fanged Fox guild’s expenses had stabilized, we still had a large force that had to remain mobilized, and to support the development of the guild.

The guild wouldn’t be turning a profit for at least another real world six months. Quant Z had laid out his plans for development and was very insistent that his revenue streams not be tampered with during that time to ensure maximum growth and development long term. I could overrule all of that as the Guild Leader and CEO, but it would draw negative attention to how I was paying to win in a very shameful manner.