Fighting With Twigs

Octane stepped out of Stone Back Village and headed north. The area north of the village was mostly barren with a few trees here and there and some hills could be seen towards the north east in the distance. Turning the camera around, James saw a massive mountain to the south of Stone Back Village.

He knew this mountain was named Blood Stone Mountain and that many different materials could be obtained from the various gathering nodes on the mountain, he would probably have to come back to this area frequently in the future to upgrade his equipment.

Heading north once again, it didn't take long before he saw his targets. There were 3 wolves standing on their own growling while moving their heads from left to right and another 3 wolves sitting together as a small group. Looking at [Old Twig] in octanes hands again, James couldn't help but sigh. It was a long branch of about 1.5 metres and looked extremely brittle, as if one could snap it easily with their hands alone. It really was an old twig.

James had Octane stop at a short distance away from the first wolf when white text appeared at the top of his screen.

[Location Discovered: Wolf's Hunting Ground]

Dragons River Online's combat system allows characters to use various skills and chain them or use them in succession to create different effects, however every class begins with no skills and only a basic attack. As a mage, James positioned himself further away from his targets to launch a kind of magic attack forward. Thusly, James tapped his mouse and begun his offence.

Octane raised [Old Twig] above his head and swung down with all his might, but nothing happened. James' mouth dropped in astonishment! As a mage, he thought the basic attack would fit the context and launch a magic bolt or something at least, but a physical swing? How was he supposed to kill monsters by swinging and old tree branch? At least this physical swing had not consumed any mana.

James had no time to wonder about whether his mage should use magic or not as the wolf had been alerted by the offensive attack within its aggression range and charged towards Octane. James reacted quickly tapping his mouse while trying to move Octane but he had already lost the initiative and the wolf pounced.

Octanes health dropped by 12% just before he landed the first strike on the wolf. As he couldn't move while swinging his weapon, Octane suffered another two strikes from the wolf before managing to strike it down with [Old Twig] with another 3 hits. A white [EXP+] appeared above the wolf as it fell and octanes EXP bar increased by another 30%.

James noticed that Octanes health was increasing by 1% every second and realised that the passive health regeneration rate was indeed very slow when in combat. As the fight with the wolf only took 7 seconds and the wolf had hit him 3 times, he had only regenerated 7% of his HP while the wolf had taken off 36%, and that was without a critical hit.

After resting for a few seconds to regenerate some of Octanes health, he moved up to the next wolf. Wasting no time, Octane ran up to the wolf and struck it before he drew its aggro. [CRITICAL] appeared in red letters above its head and it lost 80% of its health with one strike. Octane then moved to the side as the wolf pounced forward, missing its target. Raising [Old Twig] once again, Octane swung towards the wolf which had yet to turn around to face him, striking the wolf squarely in the back. More red letters that spelt [BACK ATTACK] appeared on screen as wolfs remaining health disappeared and it died.

[EXP+]

Octanes EXP went up by another 30% and was only one wolf away from levelling up. James noticed that a small sparkle flew from the wolf into his character. Knowing that it was his autoloot ring that had picked up an item, James opened Octanes inventory and saw a material item [Wolf Fang] next to his eggs inside. There was only one, but it was his first drop.

Remembering how [BACK ATTACK] had appeared as a damage amplifier, James wondered whether [BACK ATTACK] or [CRITICAL] would be stronger so he rushed up behind the 3rd wolf before striking. Once again [BACK ATTACK] appeared above its figure as it turned around. The wolf's, health bar had dropped by 50% this time as Octane moved out of the way of the wolf's attack. Octane struck the wolf two more times as the wolf moved about while attempting to pounce on Octane, restricting his movements. Octanes normal hits only dealt 35% of its health so he had to hit it twice more after the initial attack before killing it.

[EXP+]

DING!

A bell chimed as Octane slew the 3rd wolf and levelled up. Text appeared at the top of the screen informing James that a skill could be learned.

LEVEL UP

SKILL [MANA BOLT] CAN BE LEARNED

Excitedly, James opened the skill tree and saw a blue outline over the [MANA BOLT] skill.

[Mana Bolt]

HIT: x2

MP: 5

Fires a ball of mana in its most basic form.

REQUIREMENT:

SP: 1

LvL: 2

Skill points were easy to acquire when starting a new character as you need only level up to earn one, however, this becomes capped at level 50 so players must farm for skill points by either grinding materials to make a skill book or getting lucky and receiving one from boss loot.

As Octane had just levelled up he had at least one skill point available so James immediately put the skill point into [Mana Bolt]. Not wanting to try his luck against the group of wolves near him, Octane headed back to hand in his quest.

On the way back to the village, James checked his characters profile to see the increased stats. His maximum mana had increased by 5 and his health had increased from 100 to 120. James had found the option to change his health into numbers but he preferred the percentages so he didn't bother with it.

Octane's attack and defence points hadn't changed at all, thus was because the value for attack points and defence points came from his equipped gear. The attack and defence points displayed was a base multiplier that would be applied before amplifiers such as critical hit damage. each class had their own hidden base attack stat that would increase as they levelled up. These hidden stats that varied slightly depending in the class is the reason for class imbalance.

Over time, players had done various forms of testing and determined a basic outline for these hidden stats, but knowing them wouldn't change them, so James didn't bother looking into it. He knew he would learn all the advantages and disadvantages of his opponents and allies as he continued to play the game.

Arriving back at Stone Back Village, Octane moved over to the east side where the guard was standing, the quest icon above his head was now a green tick.

"You're back already! No worries, any job done is a job well done. I've another job for you but you need to get stronger first, take this as a reward for the wolves and use it to get stronger. I don't need it anyway."

[EXP+]

OBTAINED [WOLF LEATHER ROBE]

Octane had received exp and an item as the quest rewards. He had received a grey coloured robe that seemed to be made from the skin on the back of a wolf and as a low level common item, it looked crude and ugly, in fact without the name, no one would even know that it came from a wolf. Of course, as James had purchased the cosmetic outfit, the ugly robe he had just received would not show if he were to put it on so James checked out the stats on his new robe as he equipped it into Octane's chest armour slot.

[Wolf Leather Robe]

Type: Chest Armour

Rarity: Common

Defence Points: 10

James saw that his exp bar had filled to 90%, if he had killed a few more wolves earlier then he would have levelled up with the exp reward from the quest. Thinking about this, James was about to head out back to the hills to slay a few more wolves to level up when he noticed that the blacksmith and the potion vendor had quests for him.

"Hey Adventurer! Heard about your flawless victory over the wolves, but don't you wanna get even stronger? If you can bring me [Wolf Fang] x 1, [Wolf Hide] x 2 and [Wolf Bone] x 1 I'll be able to make a new potion that will boost your strength!"

James knew that later in the game at higher levelled areas, he would need to use different buffs from food and potions to help him fight and survive. Interested on what kind of buffs the game offered, he accepted the quest before moving on towards the blacksmith.

"Hey there young lad, heard you were looking to get stronger eh? Well if you want, I got a few spare materials but I'm missing a few. Get me [Wolf Fang] x 2 and [Wolf Bone] x 2 and I'll be able to make you a new weapon! How about it eh?"

James had originally thought that he was missing the level requirement for the guards next quest but it may have been a chain quest for which he needed to complete the blacksmith and the potion vendor's quests before being able to accept it. Nevertheless, he wanted to upgrade from the common equipment he had as soon as possible so he accepted the quests before moving towards the Inn.

James had barely stepped into the Inn before heading back out, the only reason he went in was because of the possibility that the cook or the Innkeeper had quests for him, as he saw that was not the case he decided to head out back to the wolf hills to slay some more wolves. On his way, James checked the quest completion requirements for his two active quests. They were hand in quests that required him to obtain three different materials, the [Wolf Fang] is a common drop, of which he already had one but he needed two more, the other mats needed were [Wolf Hide], another common material and [Wolf Bone] which was an uncommon drop from wolf type monsters.

After travelling for a bit, James arrived at Wolf's Hunting Ground, the wolves he'd slain earlier had re-spawned and once again, appeared on his screen.