Chapter 8 Chapter 8: The Starter Set From Hell Three Pieces of Ancient Immortal Gear
Golden light pulsed once, twice, then settled.
Ethan pulled up both item panels before the glow even finished fading.
【Eternal Coat】(Lv0, Gold Ancient Immortal)
HP: +140
Bonus Stat: Stamina +20
Special Effect Vitality: Automatically regenerates 5 HP per second.
Description: Covers what needs covering and toughens what needs toughening. Excellent for absorbing punishment.
Note: Soul-Bound
【Heroic Trousers】(Lv0, Gold Ancient Immortal)
Defense: +28
Bonus Stat: Intelligence +20
Special Effect, Iron Skin: Reduces all incoming damage by a flat 15 points per hit.
Description: Even the toughest guy alive has cold legs in winter. These fix that.
Note: Soul-Bound
Ethan read them twice.
Then he equipped both, pulled up his full stat sheet, and went quiet for a moment.
【Player: Cole】(Level 2)
Talent: Infinite Fusion (SSS-Rank)
Reputation: 1
Attack: 66 | Defense: 51 | HP: 190 | Mana: 115
EXP: 90/500
In his entire first life, Ethan had never seen stats like this on a Level 2 character.
He'd spent a year in the Oracle World and never touched Purple Epic gear. Not once. His best piece of equipment, the one he'd been most proud of, had been a Blue Rare ring he'd farmed for three straight days.
And here he was. Level 2. Three pieces of Gold Ancient Immortal equipment. 51 defense. 190 HP.
He thought about the Silver Moon Wolf King, the boss he'd just killed, the fight that had genuinely pushed him and ran the numbers.
"The Wolf King had 40 attack. My defense is now 51, plus 15 flat reduction from Iron Skin."
"It literally couldn't damage me."
He almost laughed out loud standing there at the tree line of the Deadwood Forest.
"These stats are more than enough for the Level 5 and 7 quests."
He hid the golden glow on all three pieces, checked that everything looked like unremarkable starter gear from the outside, and walked into the forest.
---
The Deadwood Forest was quiet.
Tianyan had been live for less than thirty minutes. The average player was hovering around Level 1, cautiously poking at Level 1 and 2 mobs near the starter zone perimeter. Nobody had ventured this far out yet.
The forest stretched wide and shadowy around him, gnarled dead trees, patches of pale grass, and everywhere, the low grumbling snort of Berserk Wild Boars. Black-furred, heavy-shouldered, wandering in loose clusters between the tree trunks.
They glanced at Ethan as he entered.
Then went back to whatever boars did when nobody was bothering them.
Monsters below Level 10 don't aggro unless provoked or commanded, Ethan remembered. Good.
He cast Detection on the nearest one.
【Berserk Wild Boar】 Level 5, Common Monster
Attack: 34 | Defense: 9 | HP: 180
Description: Extremely aggressive. Will gore anything that moves. Protect yourself accordingly.
Ethan did the math.
His defense was 51. Iron Skin reduced damage by another 15. The boar's 34 attack hit for negative numbers against his combined mitigation.
Genuinely cannot hurt me.
He walked up behind the nearest boar, raised the Blade of Slaughter, and stabbed it cleanly in the hindquarters.
-87!
ROAR
The boar wheeled around in a fury, massive head dropping, and charged.
It hit Ethan like a small car.
He stumbled back two steps, checked his HP
-1 (Forced Damage)
He blinked.
Even forced damage is just one point.
He backhanded the sword across the boar's flank as it turned for another pass -87! and then drove the blade home.
【Ding~ Berserk Wild Boar defeated. EXP +20!】
A rusty axe clattered onto the ground beside one copper coin.
Ethan picked up the axe and checked the item tag.
【Grandpa's Lost Axe】Quest Item. Good for chopping wood. Terrible for everything else.
He tossed it in his bag.
One down.
He moved through the forest in a steady rhythm, find the boar, close the distance, two hits, done.
Swish. Swish.
-87! -87!
【Ding~ Berserk Wild Boar defeated. EXP +20!】
Three strikes per kill, averaging out. Clean and efficient.
Though after the third boar, Ethan paused.
"I'm three attack points short of consistent two-hit kills. That's annoying."
He stopped walking and opened his stat screen.
Right. Free attribute points.
Six points accumulated from leveling up, Level 0 to Level 2, three points per level and he hadn't spent a single one.
He dumped all six into Strength.
Before Level 10 class advancement, 1 Strength equaled 1 Attack. Clean conversion.
His attack jumped from 66 to 72.
He found the next boar, raised the sword
Swish. Swish.
-93! -93!
The boar's 180 HP evaporated in exactly two hits.
【Ding~ Berserk Wild Boar defeated. EXP +20!】
Ethan nodded once, satisfied.
"That's the feeling."
The axe drops were humbling.
That first kill dropping the quest item immediately had given him false hope. It wasn't until the fourth boar that the second axe finally hit the ground. The fifth took six more kills. The drop rate was doing exactly what drop rates always did, making him earn it.
But the copper coins were consistent. One to two per kill, without fail. Level 5 mobs were noticeably more generous than the Level 3 wolves had been.
He settled in and worked.
Swish. Swish.
【Ding~ Berserk Wild Boar defeated. EXP +20!】
Boar after boar. Copper after copper. Axe by axe, slow and stubborn.
By the twenty-fifth kill, the tenth axe finally dropped into his inventory.
Ethan looked at it, looked at the quest log confirming completion, and closed his bag.
"Done."
He checked the map. The Shadow Cave, location for the weasel quest, was northeast from here. He could go straight there without backtracking to town.
He did the math on time and decided, submit both quests together when I'm finished. Don't waste the trip.
He turned northeast and started moving.
He was barely twenty feet from the forest edge when he heard voices behind him.
A small group of players had wandered to the Deadwood Forest perimeter, probably following the road on the map out of curiosity and stopped dead at the treeline.
Staring at the inside of the forest.
At the twenty-five scattered boar corpses still fading into white light across the clearing.
"...What happened in there?"
"Someone cleared this entire section solo. Look at the corpse count."
"Solo Level 5 mobs? We can barely handle Level 3 wolves with five people."
One of them squinted at Ethan's retreating figure.
"Wait. I've seen that walk before. Is that the guy from Silverwood Forest? The one who solo'd the Wolf King?"
"It IS him. Has to be, the Wolf King dropped top-tier equipment and he took all of it. He's been carrying Ancient Immortal gear this whole time."
"Okay but, the Bloodthirsty Brotherhood is
looking for this guy. Scarface King put out a search."
A pause.
"...You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"If we tip off the Brotherhood and they catch him, we might get a reward out of it."
