CHAPTER 9

“Hing!” letting out a grunt, Jonas rolled out of the way of the wolf’s paw that was about to crush his head like a watermelon. Then he circled around the monster to look for a chance to deliver a strike. Player assist system might not consume stamina, but rolling, running, and dodging costs, and Jonas couldn’t do those constantly. 

“If only there were a system to cycle weapons, I would have switched to bow during crucial moments.” Jonas thought about switching to bow to deal damage to this one for 10 rounds before switching to the sword once again. That way, he would have delivered 40 damage to it from a distance. Anyway, the monster was at its last legs while his HP was still 100+. 

[Lv 9 Elite Wolf]

[HP: 38/500]

“One more strike, just one more strike, and it would be a pulp….” Thinking of this, Jonas threw caution to air and head logged towards the monster. Even if a successful hit landed on him, it couldn’t one-shot him, could it?

Seeing its prey running at it like a fool, the wolf swiped its paws at him, and it successfully connected with his body, throwing him off all the way from where he ran. 

[-80]

[Warning! Low HP!!]

“What?” Jonas was momentarily blanked. He didn’t expect this monster to hide such a move and use it at a crucial moment like this. Moreover, if it weren’t for his 17 points DEF and 147 HP, he would have killed on the spot. 

{AAOOOO!!!!}

The wolf elite howled, the ground beneath its foot shined brightly before 5 Lv 8 wolf mobs were summoned. 

‘Are you kidding me? This wolf is playing dirty, grrr!! I getting tired too… sigh! It can’t be helped.’ Since he realized he couldn’t defeat his enemy, the only thing he could do was to run away and try again. And that’s what he did, he turned his tails and ran away, leaving the wolfs’ radar. The moment Jonas was out of its aggro range, the Lv 9 wolf elite regained its HP and started to roam the area as if it just didn’t fight a battle to the death with a player. The wolf mobs below its feet also started to roam with it, sniffing around everything in their sight. 

Standing exactly 20 meters away from it, Jonas sat down below a tree, hyperventilating. It soon stopped after a few seconds, and Jonas also felt his stamina refilling. Although the amount of stamina couldn’t be increased in-game or by increasing stats, the regain rate could. 

How they calculate stamina, and that was exactly the same as their real stamina, that Jonas didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He couldn’t understand it anyway, so what’s the use. But, he knew by increasing PHY and DEF, he could increase the regain rate of stamina. Again, he didn’t know about the accurate formula of how they calculated, and the game never revealed it, but Jonas felt its effect when his stamina was filled to the brim in just 14 seconds even though he juts fought a long and arduous battle followed by a full sprint for his life.  

Realistically, it shouldn't have been possible, would it?

A minute later, his MP also filled as he used First aid to restore his depleted HP, which was an all-time low after he started his game for a day. He may have died instantly, so much so that he created a hall of fame record; but never had he seen his HP bar this low. 

‘This boss is tricky, and if it starts to spam that attack again and again, then I couldn’t get close to it no matter how much I roll or get behind its back… what to do. Then there are those mobs it could summon, at a crucial moment, if it summoned them, it only means the repeat of the situation just now. Is this wolf really meant for noobs to kill?’ Jonas fell into thought, thinking of how he should tackle this problem. 

This game lets everyone start equally in one way or another, save for one. It's their stamina. Only stamina differed, depending on who plays the game. If an average person with average stamina equipped with the same stats and weapons as Jonas currently, they would have killed this mutt within a minute at tops. Compared to an average person, Jonas's stamina was even lower than them, well its what he gets for sitting in his ass all day. His orthopedic specialist advised him to walk with that leg, even though it couldn’t be calculated as proper stamina exercise, it still would have helped him with retaining an average 14 years old stamina. 

‘I can’t believe I am feeling bad because of a game, sigh! Think, think harder, if running off and slashing wasn’t an option, then what can I do? Trap? Can I build a trap with my skills?’ feeling like a light bulb going on in his head, Jonas instantly crouched down where he stood and pressed both his palm on the ground and thus started to recklessly use skill dismantling and dismantling. 

[Digging successful, you have obtained no items. +20 PP]

[Digging successful, you have obtained no items. +20 PP]

[Digging successful, you have obtained no items. +20 PP]

[Dismantling failed, item destroyed. +10 PP]

Messages like that started popping, but Jonas heeded them not. There was the only thing in his mind to dig a hole deep enough. His plan was simple, use digging to create a deep hole, then use construction to build spike inside it. There was no need for it turns into rare, elite, or anything. In fact, he wouldn’t even mind if it turns out fragile. All he needs that thing to be inside the hole so that he can shot the hell out of it. 

‘It's weird though, my Digging has already reached level 5, and I am even using it constantly, but not a single item popping… is 2.5% just too low, or this ground was destined to not pop any item?’ Jonas thought while using his digging to the extreme. 

In fact, if it were a normal RPG game that played in PersonalComp screen, Jonas would have never done so, as there was no point. But this game was totally on a different scale than them. In fact, it was so different that it would almost feel like real. Here every little feat gave him a sense of accomplishment, like how he killed that baboon with using Dismantling efficiently. What would happen if I do this- with this on his head all the time, Jonas was exactly like a caveman in modern society. He was eager to find every secret of this game. 

Jonas didn’t know this yet, but almost 88% of the total players of this game shared the same sentiment as him. It has to be expected when something that could only belong to sci-fi movies suddenly becomes a reality and even available to everyone at a bargain price. The curiosity of humanity which further enhanced by fantasy world setting and gamer instincts at work here.  

Every day, players discover new ways to play this game, hence its popularity’s upward curve. And every day, the number of players logging in to this game was increasing at an exponential pace. 

Ten minutes after, Jonas stood inside a 10-meter deep hole, wide enough to hold the huge wolf(in his assumption). After dusting his hands off virtual dust, he sat down and started applying construction. Now, this construction is a funny kind of skill. If you have materials, no matter what you wish, it can be constructed. Provided, you have the blueprints first. 

Now there are man ways to obtain blueprints, one was to buy it from the market place or as a drop from monster kills or hidden treasure chests. And there was also another way, that was to create your own blueprint with blueprints editor that comes with the skill itself. There was a player named Hack_yTppY, who created a huge d***k shaped tank on the outer wall of a huge guild, which miraculously turned out to be an epic item. Players of that guild were still unsure whether to destroy that item or not since its an epic ranked thing…

That tank and by extension, the guild was still the butt of many jokes to this day. 

“Pfft!” like many players, Jonas couldn’t stop his laughter after remembering that tank and the faces of guild members whenever other people bring that up. As for that player, Hack_yTppy, well, he was hunted down by the guild for quite a while, forcing him to drop several levels until another strong guild took him in. 

[Please draw the detailed shape of the object you want to create.]

With that notification, a blue square lined screen appeared with many editing tools on it. Jonas selected the pen tool and drew a perfect 5-meter tall spike with zagged edges and quite detailed at that. Well, he had often played around with the DrawPad tool of his computer to draw paintings, so he was quite adept at that and skilled enough to not make it look like some sort of modern art gone wrong. Moreover, drawing here was similar to drawing on a canvas, the feeling was quite similar.

“Done!” after finishing his peace, he clicked on the tick mark symbol on the top left. 

[Do you want to finalize your model?] 

“Yes.” 

[Blueprint successfully created and saved. Click on the blueprint while using the skill to construct.]

“Everything I need is already here, now only left is to create it.” Jonas placed his left palm on the ground before clicking on the small icon floating just below his index finger of the hand he placed on the ground. He clicked on it lightly while his heartbeat increased in excitement. 

A flash of orange light and then he saw a spike coming out of ground just a few centimeters away from his hand. The visual was so surreal that Jonas felt speechless for quite a while until the notification came at least. 

[Construction complete, item is a common ranked spike named according to how it was given in the blueprint. You have gained +200 PP]