Chapter 2: Slime | Ink East

Even though Chen Feng had never played this game before, he still knew several things about it.

For example, he knew that newbies leveled up quickest through accepting quests, and he had to approach respective NPCs individually to find quests. Of course, experienced players could rely on their own experience to find NPCs with quests as quickly as possible. Chen Feng could only rely on his own luck.

However, Chen Feng wouldn’t deliberately look for NPCs to accept quests because leveling up or not didn’t matter to him. He didn’t want to make a name for himself in this game anyway, and just wanted to find some way to muddle along these five years.

However, he still had to achieve a certain standard, even if he did want to muddle along. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to do anything if he ran into any exceptional circumstances.

Chen Feng had to take such things into consideration, so he ran towards the village entrance and found several NPCs to approach. But describing his movement as ‘ran’ seemed a little forced. His movement speed was truly very slow in the game’s starting stages. He was almost walking.

Chen Feng felt a little exasperated as he followed his electronic map’s directions toward the village entrance. He ran into several NPCs along the way. He stepped forward for a brief conversation, but he discovered after his conversations that no quests were triggered, and he hadn’t found a single one before he reached the village entrance.

Since I can’t find any quests, then so be it, Chen Feng thought to himself. He decided to stop approaching NPCs as he ran straight for the village entrance.

Fortunately, the houses and whatnot that Chen Feng had come across along the way were designed quite realistically, and even the NPCs appeared no different from real people. The game appeared to be designed relatively well. The ancient European constructions were beautiful, and they radiated peace and harmony. The NPCs all looked very kind and friendly.

“Eh? Something’s not right.”

Chen Feng found two guards standing by the village’s main gate. Even though they didn’t look different, Chen Feng could feel that they were different from other NPCs.

Their expressions didn’t look as natural as other NPCs inside the village, and they appeared a little anxious and worried. Chen Feng had always been relatively sensitive to human expressions, but he probably wouldn’t have seen this if he hadn’t been moving very slowly.

Chen Feng hoped to get lucky as he walked up and asked, “Is there something I can help you with?”

One of the guards frowned. “Youngster, we do need some help, but you seem a little too weak right now.”

Chen Feng answered plainly, “Yes, but I will become stronger after I gain experience.”

I really don’t like talking about these things, Chen Feng thought to himself. But he had no choice but to go through this rigid process to accept a quest. Chen Feng knew that early-stage NPCs weren’t that intelligent.

The guard replied, “Oh? You sound like a very ambitious youth. Alright, I’ll give you a task! There are many slimes wreaking havoc outside the village, and I want you to destroy them. I will give you a reward for that.”

Ding! The game sent a message, Are you willing to accept the quest, [Slime Extermination]?

Accept!

[Slime Extermination] (F-rank Quest): Kill 20 slimes. There is no time limit for this quest.

20? Didn’t they tell me that I can level up by defeating just a few monsters? Are slimes not Level 1 monsters? Chen Feng headed toward the village with some doubts in his mind.

He turned around, and noticed that several other players were already heading in the same direction. He couldn’t help but run even faster toward the village after turning back, but not because he wanted to gain the upper hand, but because he didn’t want to be together with too many people.

The truth was, forming a team was the most appropriate method, but he didn’t like being together with others, not to mention strangers, even though he was a newbie who didn’t know anything about the game.

As for the players behind him…

---

“Fuck, you can tell with one look that he’s an expert. The way he’s running towards the Wild Monsters Zone isn’t something we can achieve.”

“You want to be like that? Keep dreaming.”

---

Chen Feng didn’t know what the players behind him were saying. Even if he did, he didn’t care, because they were just meaningless affairs to him.

Chen Feng left the others’ sight for some time before he discovered his first target not too far from his position. It was a round, fat, and shaggy living being, dark green in color. It was about half a meter tall, and it looked like an enormous ball.

He ran for a little while more before he finally neared this monster, and he could see its attributes.

[Slime] (Rank 3)

Attack: 6-8

Defense: 1-2

HP：50

HP: 50

Introduction: “One of the low-rank living beings on the continent, but it doesn’t have a good temper. It will attack humans.”

Just this? I should be able to just kill it.

Chen Feng was ready to make his move.

“Uh…” Chen Feng was fixed upon his target, but he suddenly realized a very embarrassing problem when he was about to attack. It would appear that he didn’t have a weapon...

The thought occurred to him as he glanced at his bare hands doubtfully. He just stood there with empty hands, and an inexplicable feeling filled his heart.

Everything seemed to stop at this moment!

Chen Feng stood there awkwardly for two seconds before a thought came to mind.

Every player’s newbie equipment should be in their virtual backpacks. There are some newbie consumables inside, and I should be able to open my backpack with my thoughts. My backpack’s contents should automatically appear in my mind, and I just have to concentrate on an item for it to appear where I want it to appear around me.

Chen Feng immediately began to channel his thoughts as he figured that out, and several items appeared in his mind.

There was a rusted and worn-out metal sword, a tattered piece of body armor, and a red glass vial that had the number “5” displayed on it.

[Rusty Metal Sword] (Rank 1 Equipment)

Attack: 2-3

[Tattered Body Armor] (Rank 1 Equipment)

Defense: 2-3

[Small HP Vial] x5: Immediately recover 100 HP.

Chen Feng read the introductions to these items before he immediately sent an order to two items in his mind. Equip!

Light flashed across his hands as an extremely poor quality sword appeared in his hands. There was another pause before light flashed across his body, and a tattered piece of body armor appeared on him.

His equipment wouldn’t instantly appear, but he didn’t have to put it on like he had to in reality. However, he could instantly switch between his weapons, because switching between weapons in reality was quicker than other equipment, after all.

Do I look like a swordsman now? He couldn’t help but peek as his own attributes as he channeled the thought in his head.

“Whoosh!”

A blue light screen suddenly flashed in front of him!

This must be my attributes profile?

[Blue Maple] (Level 1 Newbie Swordsman)

Attack: 3-4

Defense: 3-4

HP: 100

MP: 50

Chen Feng thought about living in this game for five years before he suddenly muttered under his breath, I will be known as Blue Maple in the future… At least, that will be my name in this world.

Every player’s starting attributes were distributed the same way. They had 1-2 Attack, while their HP and MP were 100 and 50 respectively. However, MP wasn’t very useful before Level 10 because players didn’t have any skills at all, and even magic-type classes could only use physical attacks in the early stages.

Blue Maple didn’t know how magic-type classes went about their business. Even though Blue Maple had seen some books regarding this subject, he wasn’t interested in magic-type classes, so he hadn’t read about them at all.

Blue Maple didn’t want to care about those things. He only thought about himself when it came to it. Furthermore, he had already turned his attention to that Slime as he thought about how to kill it.

He grabbed the handle on his sword as he pointed the tip of his sword down while he shifted toward the Slime.

He wanted to charge forward, but his movement speed didn’t let him...

He began to think about the instructional videos by Swordsmen he found when he searched for several videos made by several alleged expert Swordsmen about fighting monsters.

There was also a description:

All movements in the game are made through individual thoughts. You can make any action that you like, as long as you can think of it. Of course, your actions are limited to typical human actions. For instance, you can do a backflip. You can do such actions inside the game world, even if you can’t in reality. This is one of the reasons why many people like playing this game.

But you can’t turn your neck 360 degrees unless you obtain some special physique within the game, or if you obtain some special skill.

Blue Maple could still remember how the narrator made a funny expression when he stopped there.

He came near the Slime as he thought about the videos he had watched. He thrust with his first attack, and made his move before the Slime could attack.

His sword found its target, and green blood oozed out!

However, the blood didn’t splatter far, and didn’t touch his body. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel a little sick, but he didn’t reveal any uncomfortable expressions. His graphics settings were set to be completely realistic, and the green blood did seem very realistic. However, such things didn’t affect him at all. Images like these couldn’t possibly affect him at all.

“Green blood? I see…” Blue Maple paused hesitantly when he saw the color of the Slime’s blood, but he quickly understood.

Normal people should be able to accept this better if the blood is green, Blue Maple thought to himself indifferently, as he continued his attack.

Even though Earth was mired in conflict, normal citizens might not have seen proper war and killing before. It was better to help them get used to things like fresh blood.

The Slime had green blood, and that was as suitable as it could be.

A small damage number appeared above the Slime’s head.

-3!

This attack damage is really making killing so cumbersome. Blue Maple thought to himself in frustration.

He had to attack this monster seventeen times at this rate, and he could only attack once every two seconds. He had to keep attacking for more than thirty seconds, even if he didn’t stop. Furthermore, he knew that this wasn’t possible unless the monster didn’t retaliate.

Blue Maple swiftly retreated after his first successful strike, because the monster was about to strike back.

Indeed, the Slime’s attack followed immediately after. It opened its large mouth to bite him, but his retreat meant he completely evaded this attack, and an enormous “MISS” appeared above his head.

The narrator’s voice flickered across his mind.

“When attacking monsters, you should move around to the monster’s left or the right, or you can circle around it while attacking it. You can increase the monster’s miss rate this way. The magnitude of the monster’s miss rate depends on your individual reactions, and on your judgment of the monster’s attacks.

“If your reactions are quick enough, you should be able to evade all attacks by low-rank monsters in the Newbie Village. Of course, that’s just theoretically possible. Even though newbie monsters have low ranks and their movement speeds and whatnot are slow, newbie players are also very slow.

“Therefore, evading all the attacks shouldn’t be possible. Let’s not talk about whether the players have reactions that quick, because not many people can predict monsters’ attacks. Of course, there are exceptions. I have heard of several experts who rely on their superior judgment and reactions to evade every single attack. But even then, they should only evade the first few attacks.

“There hasn't been any reliable proof about whether that’s true. Every player will probably find that someone can evade all attacks without predicting them a big joke, because no human can possess such reaction time.”

The narrator made another funny expression as his explanation stopped there.

Blue Maple thought about this sentence in the introduction, and his lips couldn’t help but curve into a smile.

Then, am I considered human?

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