Source of Venom

"The game will launch in 1 minute and 30 seconds. Please name your character."

Hearing the system prompt again, Wu Shaozhen shook his head and stopped overthinking it. This was a groundbreaking game, after all. There were bound to be plenty of things he couldn't understand. He steadied himself and said:

"Dustseal."

"Name registered successfully. Your character will use your real appearance, which cannot be adjusted. After entering the game, you may purchase a mask or face covering from a shop to conceal your appearance. To help players adapt quickly, pain sensitivity will start at 5%. Every ten levels, the system will automatically increase it by 5%. All other senses will be identical to those in the real world.

After each player enters the game, the system will randomly generate a permanent talent based on their overall characteristics. Every talent has its own strengths. Please make good use of yours, and try to choose a class that complements it."

"All right, enjoy the game! The game is about to begin...

10

9

3... 2... 1."

The moment the voice faded, a light flashed, and Wu Shaozhen found himself standing in Novice Village. White lights kept flashing around him as more people appeared. Before long, the place was packed shoulder to shoulder.

"Holy shit, this is a game?"

"Damn, this feels way too real!"

"This is exactly like the real world!"

"Fuck! Who the hell grabbed my ass?"

"Uh, sorry. I was just testing how it felt. I thought I was dreaming. It really does have 100% realism."

"Fuck you! Then let me grab yours and see how real it feels!"

"Please don't! I've already tested it. It's very real!"

Countless noisy voices erupted around him, leaving Wu Shaozhen barely able to tell whether he was in reality or a game.

"Welcome to Oracle. You have spawned in Novice Village 8365. The system has provided you with a starter gift pack. Your talent has been generated: [Source of Venom]. Please check your character panel for details."

"Source of Venom? What the hell? I'm an upstanding guy. What do I have to do with poison?" Wu Shaozhen looked utterly bewildered. He knew everyone's talent was determined by their own characteristics, but he couldn't figure out what connection he had to poison.

A little earlier, in the real world, after Wu Shaozhen's consciousness entered the game, his skin had slowly begun to turn pale as toxins continued seeping into his blood. A short while later, when the gaming helmet collected a blood sample, it detected the toxins in his bloodstream. Through the blood-sampling process, the helmet ultimately absorbed most of the toxins in Wu Shaozhen's body.

Open character panel, Wu Shaozhen commanded silently.

Name: Dustseal

Level: 0

HP: 50

Mana: 50

Physical attack: 10

Spell Attack: 10

Physical defense: 5

Spell Defense: 5

Movement speed: 5

Experience: 0/100

Strength: 5 (affects physical attack; 1 strength = 2 physical attack)

Intelligence: 5 (affects Spell Attack; 1 intelligence = 2 Spell Attack)

Constitution: 5 (affects HP; 1 constitution = 10 HP)

Bone Root: 5 (affects defense; 1 Bone Root = 1 physical defense and 1 magic defense)

Spirit: 5 (affects Mana; 1 spirit = 10 Mana)

Agility: 5 (affects movement speed and attack speed; 1 agility = 1 movement speed and 0.2% attack speed)

Everyone started with all attributes at 5. That part was perfectly fair, unless someone had a talent that boosted their attributes.

Skill: Insight (allows you to view information on monsters no more than 10 levels above you)

Talent: Source of Venom: Basic attacks or melee skills inflict venom on the target (ranged attacks cannot trigger this effect), dealing 1 true damage per second. Can stack up to 1 time. Lasts 60 seconds. Poisoned targets cannot recover HP. Special properties: Each target killed that is at least 5 levels above you increases Poison Damage by 1. Each boss killed whose tier is no lower than your current tier increases the maximum number of venom stacks by 1 (bosses of each tier can trigger this effect only once).

Wu Shaozhen stared blankly at his talent. At first glance, it seemed pretty pathetic, but once he read its special properties, his heart began pounding uncontrollably. From his understanding of games, he could tell how terrifying this talent would become once he built it up.

He was about to hit the big time! Houses, cars, cash, girls-they were all beckoning to him. By now, he no longer cared whether he had any connection to poison. All he knew was that this talent was awesome...

He quickly opened his inventory and unpacked the starter gift pack. As expected, it contained a wooden sword and a cloth tunic.

Wooden sword: Physical attack +2 (starter equipment)

Cloth tunic: Physical defense +1 (starter equipment)

They were better than nothing, so he equipped them immediately. His attack rose to 12 and his defense to 6.

He glanced at the noisy crowd around him and the white lights that hadn't stopped flashing. By a conservative estimate, this Novice Village already held close to ten thousand people. According to the official announcement, Huaxia Country alone had ten thousand Novice Villages. If every village was like this one, that meant the game had surpassed a hundred million players in Huaxia Country alone right at launch. That was terrifying...

After finally squeezing out of the crowd, he tried to find an NPC to see whether there were any quests. Instead, he discovered that the village had only a dozen or so NPCs, every one of them surrounded by layers upon layers of players.

Uh, forget it. Even if there are quests this early, the rewards won't be much. No point wasting time. I'd be better off heading out to kill monsters, Wu Shaozhen thought.

Beyond the village entrance lay a stretch of grassland, with plenty of rabbits hopping around. At this point, the whole grassland was packed with players too. Every so often, however, a white light flashed, signaling a player's death.

Could such cute little bunnies actually kill people? Looking surprised, Wu Shaozhen approached a rabbit and cast Insight on it.

[Little White Rabbit]

Level: 1

HP: 100

Physical attack: 12

Physical defense: 7

Speed: 6

Skills: None

After looking at the Little White Rabbit's stats and then his own, Wu Shaozhen's mouth twitched. He finally understood why people were dying. Without a party, the average player couldn't even beat a damn rabbit-the lowest-level monster around.

Before reaching level ten and undergoing Class Change, players' stats were basically identical. Even with the wooden sword, their attack was only 12, and the cloth tunic brought their defense to just 6. In other words, each hit on a rabbit dealt 5 damage, while each hit from a rabbit dealt 6. More importantly, a rabbit had 100 HP, while players had only 50. Early on, their attack speeds were all the same, so it essentially came down to trading one sword strike for one swipe. The outcome was obvious. The worst part was that rabbits were actually a little faster than players. Did that mean you couldn't even run away when you couldn't win? Was this game serious?

"Holy shit, these game designers are absolute bastards. I've already been killed by rabbits twice. Can you fucking believe it?"

"I've had it worse! I was one of the first people out here, and I've already died three times. After all these years of gaming, this is the first time I've found out I can't even beat a rabbit. How embarrassing!"

Plenty of people were dying, but there were simply too many players. Often, the moment a rabbit spawned, several people attacked it at once. Without a party, the experience went to whoever landed the final blow. As for the drops, those went to whoever grabbed them fastest. Yet despite all the rabbits killed so far, he had only occasionally seen a copper coin or some rabbit fur drop. Not a single piece of equipment had appeared. Oracle's drop rates were truly pitiful.

"Fuck, killing a rabbit only gives 1 experience point! I finally managed to snag one. How long is it going to take to kill a hundred?"

Someone complained, and Wu Shaozhen's mouth twitched. Was this game really that hard?

Looking at the players fighting feverishly around him, he felt there was no way to hunt here. The rabbit he had just inspected was already surrounded by a crowd getting their hits in. Forget it. I'll try somewhere else, Wu Shaozhen thought.