"Evolve to 6C I said; everything will be FINNE~ I said; there’s nothing to worry about, I Said. UGH, how was I supposed to know I’d end up needing 1500% MORE XP," kicking a loose rock and sending it skittering across the tunnel floor, I huffed and puffed while aimlessly delving further away from the safezone.
I had left the area near the gate hours ago and was still complaining to the empty halls about how little XP I had obtained from Slaying, not one but two Beta-Rank monsters.
Although it was no easy feat skipping two Ranks and eliminating stronger foes, if, on the off chance someone did, Arkadia would reward them with a four times modifier on XP gain, and if it was in an instance that would have brought a massive 5.5 times increase.
But in my case, I may as well be eating grass and dirt instead of a steak dinner because I had only gotten 7% and change per kill, bringing me to a clean and even 25% XP.
Honestly, it was getting to be so annoying that I had begun wishing I had stayed at 3C instead of leapfrogging to a higher Racial Classification.
"15 monsters, all way stronger than me, and I barely even scratched the 25% mark toward my first level; this is just lunacy." Tugging at my hair and losing my composure, I inadvertently ignored several low-pitched growls coming from off in the distance.
After walking in the pitch-black darkness for several hours, I finally reached a stretch of tunnel with torches lit. As such, I became slightly complacent since I wasn’t solely relying on my sense of smell and hearing anymore.
Still, it didn’t really matter much because even as the cluster of small beaver-like monsters rushed forward to greet me, all it took was some light swings of my sword before they left me their bodies as loot.
Being low-Alpha-ranked monsters, I wasn’t even required to activate my talent, as my stats dwarfed theirs, and it was as easy as cutting grass.
Worse yet, it wasn’t even the first time something like this had occurred since I began my trek. In fact, I had lost count already. Mowing down weaklings wasn’t even worth my attention anymore because, at best, I’d only gain a fraction of a percent per kill.
"Tsk, that group of nincompoops cleared out everything here, too, and the new monsters didn’t spawn that long ago, so they haven’t had enough time to gather their strength." As I continued to walk deeper down the never-ending and winding tunnel, my loot goblin tendencies triggered as I stored away the spoils of my kills into my inventory without bothering to see if there were any item drops.
And so… around two more weeks passed by inside the Caverns, bringing an end to half of the available time I had to power level.
Due to the party, which had spent quite some time clearing out the nearby area, the gains I had amassed were minimal at best, meaning all I faced during the last 13 days was enough to bring me up to 99.5% XP.
Luckily, my days as a Level 0 were about to be over, and as I hacked off the heads of a horde of small goblin-like monsters, I felt a sudden burst of energy enter my body, causing my eyes to light up and my killing pace to increase.
The instant my level increased, a flood of Particles surged through my body, making my eyes glow faintly.
"Finally," the surge caused by my PC increasing gave me a slight lightheaded feeling, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop my sword from hacking down Mobs like there was no tomorrow.
By the time I finished off the last of the weak goblin monsters and sat down, I was covered in green blood, but the smile never left my face.
[Statistics]
{Level:1} *+1*
{Level Progress: 03%}
{Talent Growth Rate: 01%} *4 x Modifier*
{Alpha Particle Count: 64/7} *+2*
{Physical Offense: 10}
{Physical Defense: 10}
{Intellect: 26.5}
{Meta Physical Offense: 4.6}
{Meta Physical Defense: 4.26}
{Stat Points: 4} *+1 Natural Level Up, +3 from Race*
"Hah…hahaha, I never thought I’d feel so ecstatic about earning a single level." I mused while glancing around at the devastation I had brought to the tunnel.
Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.
All around me were the corpses of over 50 Low-Alpha Goblin monsters, filling the immediate area with their foul stench and green blood, but even that couldn’t bring down my mood.
"Now comes the real question: do I spend my points or hold on to them…hm…it’s a shame I can’t use the points toward my PC until after breaking through to Alpha-Rank, so I guess for now, I should hold onto them."
Shrugging my shoulders, I set about gathering my loot; however, just when I was about to turn away, I noticed something glittering by the tunnel wall and made my way in that direction.
"Oh…would you look at that," Still coated in green gore, I crouched down with a smirk on my lips and picked up the glittering objects.
"One, two, five High-Alpha coins, yoink," with metaphorical dollar signs in my eyes, I quickly scanned the nearby terrain and soon enough located several more small clusters of coins, only these were less valuable, and only Low-Alpha.
"It looks like I finally hit that point," dusting off my hands, I stood up and faced deeper into the caverns. I had finally reached the point beyond what that group of four idiots had and would now get some REAL loot in the form of items or coins.
The biggest issue with delving into Instances with other people was Loot generation. If a monster is killed within a certain timeframe, generally a week and a half or so, the newly spawned creatures won’t generate any items, so I had basically only been killing up until now for scraps of XP and the bodies of the Low-Alpha monsters.
The longer a monster had existed, the higher the chance of earning better monetary rewards, meaning I must have killed more than a few who had been around at the very least two months.
That was a good sign because it meant that apart from the party I had wiped out three weeks prior, no one had been in this area for some time, if at all.