Talent upgrade

After a full half hour, Wu Shaozhen landed his final hit and excitedly watched the turtle, now barely clinging to life, slowly approach death. As its last point of health vanished, its massive body finally collapsed reluctantly to the ground. A system notification sounded.

"Ding! Killed [Turtle]. Gained 15 EXP, plus 7 bonus EXP for killing a monster 5 levels above you (50% bonus; fractions below 1 are discarded)."

"Ding! Talent trait triggered. Poison damage increased by 1. Now deals 2 true damage per second to the target."

"Awesome!" Wu Shaozhen exclaimed at the notifications. He had gained 22 EXP in one go, much faster than fighting over rabbits at the village entrance. Most importantly, his talent had improved-that was what really mattered. Now it would take only half as long to kill another turtle.

He hurried over to the giant turtle's corpse and saw two copper coins on the ground-and a piece of equipment! Excited, Wu Shaozhen quickly picked it up. Equipment had actually dropped! Although killing monsters five levels above him also increased the drop rate by 50%, Oracle's drop rates were still pitifully low. Getting equipment from my very first monster has to be an incredible stroke of luck.

He took out the equipment for a look. It was a pair of shoes.

[Canvas Shoes]

Quality: plain

Movement speed +3

Physical defense +2

Equip requirements: none

Nice, nice. Just what I needed. He hurriedly put them on, bringing his speed to 8 and his defense to 8 as well.

Equipment qualities in Oracle, from lowest to highest, were: plain, Black Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Dark Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Starshine, Immortal Artifact, Sacred Artifact, Divine Artifact, and Super Divine Artifact.

Early-game plain equipment had no equip requirements; those only appeared from Black Iron onward. Black Iron equipment began to have bonus attributes, while Gold equipment and above had additional skills.

With the shoes on, even walking felt a little faster. In a cheerful mood, Wu Shaozhen continued searching for his next turtle. These turtles were practically tailor-made for him, but there weren't many around. After wandering for a while, he finally spotted one basking on the beach.

Wu Shaozhen walked straight over, slashed its shell with his sword, then turned and ran. He still took a bite, though. Early on, unless his attack speed and movement speed far outclassed the enemy's, avoiding damage was difficult.

-2, -2, -2

White numbers kept rising over the turtle's head as it struggled to chase Wu Shaozhen.

This kill was clearly twice as fast. After just fifteen minutes, the poor turtle fell with tears in its eyes. Wu Shaozhen quickly picked up the two copper coins it dropped and continued searching for his next target.

And so Wu Shaozhen kept finding and killing turtles. As his talent improved, each kill took less time. The third took ten minutes, the fourth seven and a half, and the fifth was finished in six. At that moment, another system notification sounded.

"Ding! Killed [Turtle]. Gained 22 EXP. EXP requirement reached. Congratulations, you have leveled up! Health +20, mana +10. Gained 5 free attribute points. Please allocate them wisely."

Finally leveled up. I should be progressing pretty fast, right? Wu Shaozhen looked at his five free attribute points, hesitated briefly, then decisively put them all into agility. The only reason he could kill level-five turtles was that they were slower than he was. If he wanted to make the most of his talent, adding agility to increase his speed was definitely the right choice.

After leveling up and allocating his points, his health rose from 50 to 70, his mana from 50 to 60, his agility from 5 to 10, and his movement speed from 8 to 13. His other attributes remained unchanged. He checked his EXP.

EXP: 10/300

Going from level one to level two required 300 EXP. That seemed reasonable-just a dozen or so turtles.

Wu Shaozhen considered whether to keep farming turtles or head elsewhere to hunt level-six monsters. Turtles were the safer option, and the leveling speed wasn't bad, but level-five turtles could no longer trigger his talent's trait.

Too bad dying in the starter village doesn't cost a level. Otherwise, I'd really want to let this turtle kill me, drop back to level zero, and keep grinding my talent. That would be amazing, Wu Shaozhen thought.

Forget it. I'll check somewhere else first. With my movement speed at 13 now, I should be faster than plenty of monsters. Maybe I'll even find something suitable for grinding my talent's passive. If not, I can come back to the turtles. It won't waste much time anyway.

With that thought, Wu Shaozhen turned and headed back. He had reached the end of the path; any farther ahead was the sea, so going back was his only option. Once he returned to the three-way junction, he headed straight into the forest on the left. Visibility in the bamboo grove ahead was too poor, making ambushes all too easy. Monsters above level five would attack on sight, and his current fragile body certainly couldn't withstand them.

The forest was fairly well lit, since its trees stood far apart. Wu Shaozhen walked cautiously until a pitch-black wild boar suddenly burst out from behind a tree ahead. Its two tusks gleamed, and its eyes locked onto him. It scraped a forefoot against the ground, then charged straight at him at incredible speed.

"Fuck! That's cheating!" Wu Shaozhen cried in alarm. Just as the boar was about to slam into him, he barely managed to step aside. It brushed past the edge of his clothes and crashed straight into a tree ahead, stars appearing over its head to indicate it was stunned.

Wu Shaozhen patted his chest. Luckily, he had just put all his points into agility, or there was no way he could have dodged that. He quickly cast Insight on it.

[Wild Boar]

Level: 6

Health: 2,000

Physical attack: 70

Physical defense: 30

Speed: 11

Skill: Brutal Charge: charges forward in a straight line at extremely high speed, dealing 150% physical damage to targets in its path and stunning them for 1 second. Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Wu Shaozhen's mouth twitched. This is a level-six monster? Oracle's as merciless as ever. Thank goodness I dodged that. If it had hit me, I'd probably have gotten a free trip back to town.

Should I take it on, or go back to bullying little turtles? Wu Shaozhen wavered. Taking it on was possible. The boar had 70 attack, while he had 70 health and 8 defense, so he could survive one normal attack. It was also slower than him, allowing him to put some distance between them. The problem was its skill: one hit would send him home. Wu Shaozhen wasn't confident he could dodge it every time. He had only managed it earlier because the boar was far enough away to give him time to react. If it charged just as he went in to refresh the poison, he would be done for.

Damn it, I'm going for it. My talent's poison deals 6 damage per second now. Killing a boar will only take a little over five minutes. That's worth the risk.

With that thought, Wu Shaozhen charged straight at the boar. It had just used its skill, which had a ten-second cooldown, so he didn't have to worry about being charged right now. He slashed its back with his sword.

-1 (failed to penetrate defense; mandatory damage)

-6 (poison damage)

The boar wasn't about to take that lying down. It thrust its tusks at him.

-62

Wu Shaozhen hurriedly ran away. At that moment, he suddenly realized he had overlooked a serious problem: his health regeneration couldn't keep up. Leaving combat took ten seconds, meaning he could only recover 50 health over the remaining fifty seconds. To survive the boar's counterattack, he needed at least 63 health. If he waited until his health recovered to 63 before going in to refresh the poison, the boar would spend thirteen seconds without poison on it. Once out of combat, it recovered 1% of its health per second, giving it three seconds to recover 60 health. That would greatly extend the time needed to kill it.

Ugh. Sure enough, level-six monsters aren't that easy to kill. But since I've started, I can only tough it out to the end.