Chapter 3 Chapter 3: Ancient Immortal — A Golden Weapon at Level Zero!

Lord Wolf King.

The moment those three words hit the Maplewood Town regional chat, it was like dropping a lit match into a room full of gasoline

【People Are Fickle】: "Wait, is that real? There's actually a Lord-class boss out there?"

【WashCutBlow1980】: "The devs confirmed it, monsters in NeuralVerse come in three tiers: Common, Lord, and BOSS. Lord-class drops are seriously valuable, guys."

【SpearInTheMud】: "There are like fifty people fighting over ONE chicken at the north gate right now. I'm going for the Wolf King. You losers can keep scrapping over poultry."

【BootsTooBig】: "Scrapping over what??"

The game had been live for less than fifteen minutes.

Maplewood Town was already bursting at the seams, tens of thousands of players materializing every few seconds, all of them funneling toward the same handful of Level 1 starter zones around the village perimeter.

A single baby deer had six players swinging at it simultaneously.

So when the Wolf King post hit the chat?

The stampede toward the south gate was almost immediate.

Ethan watched it happen from the edge of the square, arms folded, expression unreadable.

Perfect.

Because here was the thing, the tip he'd posted wasn't a lie.

In the, Level 3 Silverwood Forest, south of Maplewood Town, there really was a Lord-class monster. He'd killed it himself in his past life. Multiple times, actually, but by then it had already been farmed into worthlessness by hundreds of players before him.

This time, the servers had been live for under twenty minutes.

The first-kill reward was absolutely still unclaimed.

Ethan slipped into the crowd and followed them south, just another face in the mob, completely unremarkable.

The Silverwood Forest opened up like a curtain of silver-green trees, tall and dense in the California afternoon light, the kind of forest that felt ancient even inside a game.

And there, at its heart, surrounded by a loose pack of gray-furred wolves,

A single massive wolf with blood-red fur stood watching the treeline.

【Silver Moon Wolf King】 Level 3, Lord-Class

The red nameplate floating above its head made the crowd lose their minds.

"OH MY GOD, it's actually real!"

"WE'RE RICH, LET'S GO!"

"The Wolf King is MINE, nobody touch it!"

"First come, first served, let's MOVE!"

The shouting overlapped into chaos.

And then, without hesitation, a wave of Level 0 players in starter gear grabbed their wooden swords and charged directly into the forest.

Awoo—

The Wolf King didn't even move.

It just tilted its massive head and the pack surged forward to meet the players at the tree line, a wall of gray fur and snapping jaws.

The first players to reach the forest edge were hit before they could raise their swords.

-13! -11! -12!

Red damage numbers exploded above their heads.

Level 0 players started with 30 base HP. Starter cloth gear added 10 more. 40 HP total.

A Level 3 Vicious Wolf hit for 11 to 13 per strike.

The math was brutal and simple.

Three hits. Dead.

Screams erupted across the field. Bodies dropped. White light burst upward one after another as player after player got torn apart, their corpses dissolving into nothing before they even hit the ground.

The players outside the forest stared in stunned silence for exactly two seconds.

"Holy, those wolves are vicious!"

"It actually hurts?! I felt that bite, what kind of game"

"It's fine, it's fine, it's just a game! You respawn!"

"If we kill the Wolf King we can retire! CHARGE!"

And they charged.

Wave after wave, still not understanding, still thinking this was just a normal game where death meant a loading screen and a slight XP penalty.

They had no idea.

The Wolf King let out a long, resonant howl that shook the leaves from the nearest trees, summoning more wolves from deeper in the forest. The pack swelled. The slaughter accelerated.

White light was erupting from the forest every few seconds now.

And everywhere the players fell, scattered across the grass and dirt at the forest's edge and between the trees, their dropped gear lay completely ignored.

Starter Wooden Swords.

Starter Cloth Shirts.

Starter Cotton Pants.

Nobody was picking them up.

Everyone was too busy dying.

Ethan was already moving.

Quietly. Head down. No aggression, no target on the wolves, just calm, methodical steps through the outer edge of the chaos, eyes scanning the ground.

【Ding~ You picked up: Starter Wooden Sword +1】

【Ding~ You picked up: Starter Cotton Pants +1】

【Ding~ You picked up: Starter Wooden Sword +1】

【Ding~ You picked up: Starter Cloth Shirt +1】

A few players noticed him.

"Is this guy seriously looting the ground right now? Everyone else is fighting and he's"

"Bro, starter gear sells for like one copper at the shop. He's going to spend twenty minutes collecting two cents worth of junk."

A girl nearby, young, pretty, wearing her starter gear like she'd styled it, glanced at Ethan with visible contempt.

"Genuinely pathetic. I would never date someone like that. Scavenging while everyone else is out here actually doing something."

Ethan didn't look up.

He picked up another sword.

【Ding~ You picked up: Starter Wooden Sword +1】

By the time the wave of players began dying down, either retreating, respawning at the village shrine, or going permanently quiet, Ethan had collected quietly, methodically, without drawing a single wolf's attention.

He stepped back from the tree line and opened his inventory.

71 Starter Wooden Swords.

19 Starter Cloth Shirts.

21 Starter Cotton Pants.

Weapons dropped most often, held in hand, hardest to keep on a falling body. Made sense.

Ethan felt something warm ignite in his chest.

It's enough. More than enough.

He found a quiet corner behind a cluster of boulders near the forest's western edge, completely out of sight from the main crowd, sat down, and got to work.

He pulled out a Starter Wooden Sword and placed it against the one already equipped in his weapon slot.

Opened the fusion interface.

Hit confirm.

Whoosh

Both swords pulsed with a soft white glow, shimmered and merged.

【Ding~ Congratulations! SSS-Rank Talent: Infinite Fusion activated, you have obtained a Level 0 Green Fine Quality Starter Wooden Sword!】

Ethan pulled up the new item panel.

【Starter Wooden Sword】(Lv0, Green Fine) Attack +5

He exhaled slowly.

Plus three attack over the base version. From a sword that was literally free.

"Keep going."

He pulled out two more White Common swords. Fused them into another Green Fine. Then took both Green Fine swords and placed them together.

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained a Level 0 Blue Rare Quality Starter Wooden Sword!】

He didn't stop.

Four White Common swords became another Blue Rare.

Two Blue Rares merged

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained a Level 0 Purple Epic Quality Starter Wooden Sword!】

His hands were moving faster now, inventory shrinking with every fusion, quality tier climbing like a staircase with no ceiling in sight.

Two Purple Epics

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained a Level 0 Orange Legendary Quality Starter Wooden Sword!】

Two Orange Legendaries,

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained a Level 0 Red Mythic Quality Starter Wooden Sword!】

Ethan's breath was shallow now. Almost reverent.

He held the two Red Mythic swords side by side.

Pressed fuse.

The light that erupted wasn't white this time.

It was gold.

Rich, warm, blinding gold, like someone had cracked open the sun and poured it into his hands. It lasted only a second, but in that second, every blade of grass around him was lit up like midday.

Then it faded.

And in his hands rested a single sword.

Not a starter sword anymore, not in any meaningful sense. Same shape, same size. But it glowed. A deep, pulsing golden light that moved slowly along the edge of the blade, like a living thing.

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have obtained a Level 0 Gold Ancient Immortal Quality Weapon

Blade of Slaughter (Highest Quality Tier in the Game)!】