Savage Gray Wolf
Level: 11
Attack: ???
Defense: ???
……
Detailed information was lacking; I only knew that these wolves traveled in packs and blocked the sole path forward. Behind them likely lurked the mysterious Gray Wolf Leader!
Sword in hand, I trembled slightly…
Every small pack of these wolves consisted of at least four creatures. Given my current attack power, killing a single Level 11 wolf would take absolute minimum 15 to 20 strikes, wasting 30 seconds. In that case, each of the four wolves would attack me an average of 20 times—80 attacks in total. Each attack dealt around 15 damage to me, meaning I would lose a total of about 1,200 health points. Did I even have 1,200 health points?
No! The answer was a resounding no…
Even factoring in A-Hua's Tomato, which restored 90 health over 30 seconds, I had a mere 500 health points to absorb damage. If I tried to brute-force the fight, certain death awaited. Was this even a quest a beginner could complete? Could it be that I was supposed to wait until changing classes and bring a massive group of helpers to clear it?
Suddenly, I recalled the trick I had used earlier when fighting Level 9 monsters—using obstacles to evade wolves' lunges and bites. Would that have any effect?
Thinking of it, I acted immediately. I walked over and aggroed four Gray Wolves, but to my utter astonishment, this pack possessed an almost supernatural hive-mind aggro link. Instead of four, a veritable flood of wolves charged at me, with more endlessly streaming from behind.
This was hopeless! Pressing on meant losing a level. Even if I turned and ran right now, I would still be hunted down and torn apart by the sheer multitude of Gray Wolves. To make matters worse, two more had somehow spawned right on my path back!
What kind of perverted programmer designed a layout like this? This was deliberately driving people to their graves!
Every carefully laid plan vanished instantly. While enduring attacks from the wolves behind me, I fled blindly toward a cluster of nearby rocks. Could I climb them?
No! It had seemingly just rained; the rocks were slick as ice, offering nothing to grab onto!
What to do? What to do?
Eh? There was a narrow crevice between the rocks! I would squeeze in there first and figure it out later!
It seemed to be a bug. Once I wedged myself into the rock crevice, out of the massive horde of Gray Wolves, only a single one could manage to reach me. This offered a glimmer of hope. If this truly was a bug, then the earlier impossibility of pulling just four wolves must have been deliberately rigged by some mischievous designer.
After consuming a bottle of A-Hua's Tomato, I drew my sword and began hacking away at the solitary Gray Wolf pressing against me. To my surprise, its attacks dealt a mere 5 damage to my health, and restricted by the narrow environment, its frequency of lunging and biting plummeted dramatically. Freed from worry, I turned sideways and rained heavy, successive sword strikes down upon it.
Consequently, even without carrying potions, I could continuously hack down these high-XP wolves while saving myself the trouble of searching for monsters.
Before I knew it, another four hours had slipped away. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was already six. In another hour, it would be time for dinner. In truth, my stomach had been rumbling and growling for a long time, yet under these circumstances, I scarcely dared imagine what logging off would entail. Lu Xuehan had mentioned to me earlier that she had reached Level 8, miraculously squeezing into the top 100,000 nationwide…
Xinyu had logged off to sleep, but Xu Lin and a few others remained online. Checking her level, she was already at Level 7. Though not as high as Lu Xuehan's, it was still respectable, especially for a girl playing games.
The pack of wolves outside the rocks had vanished, leaving only a scattered few wandering about. Roughly calculating, I had hacked down nearly 300 wolves over these past four hours, yet they had only dropped a single Green equipment piece, three White equipment pieces, and a few red potions. With a drop rate like this, it was no wonder people cried and screamed, willing to spend real RMB to buy gear. Furthermore, the XP requirement for leveling up was absurdly high; slaughtering 300 wolves hadn't even managed to push me from Level 9 to Level 10. It seemed the rumors were true: every level ending in 9 was exceptionally difficult to grind, requiring an abnormal amount of XP. Reaching Level 99 was doable, but Level 100 was essentially a myth…
After hastily finishing off the remaining few wolves, I finally let out a long breath and stepped out of the rock crevice. The sky outside was truly fucking clear!
Those 300 wolves hadn't yielded much equipment, but they had dropped a fair amount of coin—a rough calculation put it at just under two gold coins.
I pulled out the Green equipment piece and inspected it. It turned out to be a bow:
[Wolf-Tail Longbow] (Green equipment)
Attack: 18-32
Strength: +6
Agility: +4
Required Level: 10
……
Examining it closely, I had originally thought my Beast Sword was top-tier gear, but compared to this bow, it was basically trash. Not only was its attack power far lower, but its bonus attributes lagged far behind as well.
Right, which of us was planning to play an Archer?
Flipping through my friends list, it turned out to be "Green Vegetable Temptation"—Xinyu!
I needed to consider whether I should give this top-tier bow to her. I could easily picture the scene: when I handed this bow over to her, she would undoubtedly speak in a sweet, coquettish voice about how good I was to her, and the even worse outcome might be her demanding to offer herself to me in return…
A drop of cold sweat slipped down the tip of my nose. The Warrior who had just faced the wolf pack with such valor finally felt fear!
"Awoo~!"
A wolf's howl rang out, reminding me of the true purpose of this trip—the Gray Wolf Leader!
As expected, when I rounded a patch of boulders, the majestic Gray Wolf Leader sat enthroned upon a large cyan rock. Ironically, all of its subordinates lay quietly lined up beneath the cliff, transformed into experience points.
Gray Wolf Leader
Level: 13 (BOSS)
Attack: ???
Defense: ???
……
Time waits for no one—if the trash mobs respawned, things would get troublesome!
I surged forward instantly, slashing straight at the Gray Wolf Leader's neck.
"56!"
This damage figure did not disappoint me. Being able to deal that much damage to a Level 13 BOSS was already quite good. Unfortunately, this sliver of damage felt no more than an itch to the Gray Wolf Leader; its health bar didn't even twitch!
"Slap~!"
A vicious claw landed on my body, stripping away 25 health points. Even with my defense of 43, it still dealt that much damage—this quasi-BOSS truly lived up to its name…
Successive sword strikes finally caused the Gray Wolf Leader to feel pain. As it angrily parted its bloodied maw, I seized the moment to shove a pouch of "A-Hua's Tomato" straight inside.
System Prompt: "Gray Wolf Leader" has consumed "A-Hua's Tomato," unable to regenerate health for 10 minutes.
Wasn't it supposed to be 30 minutes? Why had it dropped to ten? Could it be because it was a BOSS?
Never mind, keep hacking!