Chapter Three: Launch Day

"I kill one, then another, and another—I keep killing, I eat, I eat again, I never stop eating!" Li Ren repeated endlessly, like a crazed NPC, showing no signs of exhaustion. Instead, the more his nerves frayed, the more invigorated he became—truly bizarre.

By now, he had lost track of time. The outskirts of Calf Village, after several bold "expeditions," had become his own domain. At first, he’d occasionally wonder why no new players had come after him, but soon he grew accustomed to it. Perhaps this really was a godforsaken place—no one would ever come here.

Now at level seven, Li Ren was still slaughtering level-one wild chickens. They were now effortless prey; his small dagger danced nimbly through the air, and before the chickens could even react to his presence turning from neutral to hostile, they were already corpses on the ground.

This in itself was a small discovery: as long as he approached without strong hostility, the chickens would merely stare at him and never attack first. After figuring out this rule, his chicken-slaying enterprise flourished.

Worth mentioning too, his basic dagger skill had unknowingly reached the peak of level one, just about to advance to level two.

Perhaps this could be considered a kind of reward for monsters?

Unlike players who have endless NPC quests and trainers, monsters’ skillsets are fixed; if they want to grow stronger, they can only choose to evolve. Take Li Ren for example—he possessed many weapon skills, almost every one that players could learn, but all were empty, utterly untrained and lacking proficiency.

Now, his dagger skill had reached the pinnacle of level one, but he didn’t have the required attributes to advance it to level two. After long research, Li Ren finally discovered the solution lay in his hidden skill: Free Advancement.

Free Advancement meant that as long as his level and attributes met the requirement, he could choose any class evolution he wanted. For example, once he reached level ten, he could evolve into a skeleton soldier, shedding the humiliating "miscellaneous" label.

With only three levels left, he had no choice but to keep pushing forward.

But these last three levels, at his current pace, were a chasm he could barely hope to cross. Each wild chicken now gave only 0.1% experience at level seven—it would take a thousand kills just to level up. Don’t underestimate that number; even if a thousand chickens lined up for him, it would take ages. And he had to search for them, find them, kill them, absorb their blood essence—each step took time.

Still, from level one to seven, he had made some progress. His attributes were finally starting to look normal: Strength 14, Intelligence 12, Constitution 10, Agility 15, Bone Structure 999, Luck -5. Judging by his absorption rate, even an ordinary wild chicken had all attributes at 10—that’s level one! And he was already level seven!

As he sighed and absorbed blood essence, suddenly a majestic voice boomed from the sky—a soul-shaking authority that nearly scared him into wetting himself. Only when he realized it was the system did he curse under his breath and relax.

"The Land of the Gods is about to launch. System calibration complete. Food system enabled. Reputation system enabled. Player system enabled. War mode enabled…" The announcements went on endlessly. Li Ren’s head spun as one complex system after another was activated. Then the system’s voice shifted to a melodious female tone: "Congratulations to the first player entering the Land of the Gods: Mo Ran, reward—hidden class Dark Whisperer. Congratulations to the second: Power of Light, reward—hidden class Light Ranger. Congratulations to the third: Third Sword, reward—hidden class Wind Dance Swordsman. Welcome, everyone. We hope you have a pleasant gaming experience!"

Li Ren stared blankly as the system spoke, then looked back at Calf Village. "Damn! Turns out I was the first one in the game! This accursed system didn’t even reward me with anything—some lousy hidden class, huh, bah!" He paused, then realized, "Damn it, I was so paranoid all this time, scared of other players when there wasn’t a single one around. What rotten luck."

After his grumbling, he was about to go back to chicken hunting when a bolt of lightning struck him with blinding speed, shattering him into scattered bones. The sweet system voice sounded again: "As the player’s bones one by one activated the Heavenly Punishment system, divine retribution has fallen. 10 points of luck deducted from this player."

The newly opened Novice Village instantly erupted in commotion.

"Whoa, who’s that moron? Got his luck docked by 10 points, activated divine punishment this early—has to be some kind of genius."

"Wow! Ten points of luck gone—now his luck must be negative! Isn’t luck super important in the Land of the Gods?"

"No kidding. My starting luck is only eight; if I got struck once, I might as well delete my character and reroll. With negative luck, you probably wouldn’t even know how you died!"

"Geez, you started with eight luck? I only got three! That’s it, I’m deleting and restarting."

"Mine’s not much higher. No way—I’m rerolling. Luck is tied to future super attributes!"

"Wait for me, I’m coming too!"

On the very first day of the novice village’s opening, a wave of collective character suicides was triggered. And what of Li Ren, who had just been struck by divine punishment?

"Come on, you’ve got to be kidding! I worked so hard to raise my luck to minus five, and now you just zap me to minus fifteen? That’s worse than when I started—how am I supposed to survive?" Li Ren, on the verge of tears, painstakingly pieced his scattered bones back together.

Just as he fitted the last bone in place, a voice called out, "Boss, look! A skeleton soldier just spawned in the chicken zone! Must be a hidden field mini-boss!"

"Keep your voice down, don’t let anyone else catch on," another replied. "A boss that spawns in the chicken area can’t be that tough—probably the lowest grade skeleton from Skeleton Mountain. Let’s take him out—split the loot fifty-fifty!"

"Boss, what are you saying? Of course the loot goes to you. When you make it big, won’t I benefit from following you?" the first one said sycophantically.

"Good point. All right, when I make it big, I’ll take care of you. That’s what brothers are for!" They both laughed heartily.

Li Ren’s scalp tingled. "These two are disgusting," he muttered, but he couldn’t help glancing at the approaching pair. The one in front, apparently the leader, was burly and held a thick wooden club. His companion, with sharp features and a rat-like face, carried a short wooden sword. The game must have facial blurring on, but even that couldn’t hide his weaselly appearance; he must look even worse in real life…

Only these two newcomers were around, and Li Ren’s position was awkward. He’d just finished reassembling his bones, and now they were closing in. Running was probably too late, and with the crushing weight of minus fifteen luck, he didn’t dare move rashly.

He still remembered the early days—every step he took he’d lose a bone, or fall into a pit. If he tried to run now, he might end up worse off than fighting these two head-on.

Since he’d made up his mind, so be it. Li Ren raised his dagger. The burly man roared and charged at him. At least Li Ren was a level seven skeleton soldier now, with decent attributes—about on par with a brand-new player.

Plus, his dagger skill was maxed at level one, and thanks to his past experience in Sword Art Online, his technique was leagues above a newcomer’s. With a flick of his wrist, his dagger knocked aside the club, and as the burly man lunged forward, Li Ren’s blade pierced straight through him—a huge red "-90" floated above his head.

The man was scared half to death, but then a red glow flared and his nearly empty health bar shot back up to 80%. Li Ren was furious—this was the first time he truly felt a monster’s hatred and helplessness against a player who could chug healing potions.

"Get over here and help, you idiot, don’t just stand there!" the burly man shouted. His sidekick hurried up to attack. Li Ren raised his left hand and blocked with a small round shield—a "-5" floated up.

"This guy doesn’t have much HP, only 260. If we try a bit harder, we can kill him!" the leader estimated, eyeing Li Ren’s health bar.

He wasn’t wrong—Li Ren, at level seven, had ten HP per level plus ten Constitution, totaling 260 HP. But for two people to take him down so easily? That was underestimating him—a skeleton monster who’d slaughtered chickens endlessly to reach level seven!

Players had potion cooldowns, too. After a fierce fight, the rat-faced lackey was the first to fall victim to his potion cooldown—Li Ren stabbed him through, and he vanished in a flash of white light, respawning for free in the village. The leader looked uneasy but quickly shrugged it off. Li Ren understood his thinking: it was just a level one newbie account—no real loss in dying, so why be afraid?