(8) Influx of players

In the following weeks the popularity of Kraton's Burrow shot up, this could first be traced back to numerous parties being curious at how a certain 40-man party got massacred, however after the first week, many players found out that this dungeon was a very good grinding point! Why? because there was less people in the dungeon so more monsters would be attracted to single group, they would no longer have to wait for two or three goblins to respawn after being slain as the monsters in Kraton's dungeon seemed to come in waves.

Even after the first few weeks, the total amount of players in this dungeon at any one time was still much less than the other dungeons in Florid Boulevard, some parties had even claimed ownership of certain areas and forced others to bid money to buy or rent the area.

Naturally, with more players flocking this dungeon, there was also a rise in the frequency of players challenging Kraton. Every day Kraton would end up half depressed and half delighted. Most of the encounters with the parties led to Kraton being slaughtered, however every now and then there would be a weaker party. In percentage, Kraton got killed without taking a life around 70% of the time, however in numbers, Kraton's daily kill count had increased by double.

Time passed and Kraton had been mercilessly killed time after time, nonetheless as the sun rose up Kraton would remain gleeful, even looking more enthusiastic than the day before. Before long a month had passed and Kraton was now halfway through level 7, of course during battles he limited himself to appear as a level 4 with a health mutation (there was no way to limit his maximum health), all of the players never questioned Kraton's level as even though he had a lot more health than a standard boss of the sm level, his attacks were still incredibly week and slow! All the extra experience the players gained was passed of as killing a monster with a beneficial mutation or trait.

On the rare occassion, Kraton would pick up spoils of war: armour, weapons, minerals. Although low quality, every single piece was kept and stored by his 'bed'. He planned to somehow forge or melt the scrap metal into something useful for him, however nothing worth the effort came to his mind, therefore the pile was already the size of a small tree. Sometimes, he would grap a piece of metal and melt it around his breaking mace to crudely repair it, however he never once attempted to craft a new weapon. He just lacked the necessary knowledge for it.

Currently, his core knowledge had reached 123 points, it was extremely hard to gain any points of knowledge with players much lower levelled them him, therefore his intelligence remained stagnant for some time. 80 points was regarded as a new secondary schooler, whilst 200 points was seen as having the equal intelligence as someone who had finished their GCSE's [1]. And then 400 points was regarded similar to someone joining a university, and 800 as someone who recieved all their qualifications with ease.

Each major milestone in knowledge was double of the previous milestone, not only would it be harder to progress the the next milestone by facing against equally levelled opponents, it would eventually be near impossible to gain any extra knowledge through level-differences at higher levels. This was due to a single level difference between a level 100 and a level 101, made up the whole world. This made sense because the experience required to level up from level 100 to level 101, was so much more than the experience for a level 1 to 2. After countless advancements in society, only the richest players had had reached 1600 Knowledge points, this was all due to the invention; and the whopping price, of knowledge essence. A small vial of of the essence costs 1 billion gold coins, of course, one could easily collect the resources needed to make one in mineral rich mines and dungeons, however the whole alchemy process was tedious and time-consuming, one that only masters with unlimited patience could handle.

Kraton was in a pinch, his plan of restraining his power capabilities came with drawbacks that he did not calculate. With the negative level difference, gaining knowledge points was like finding a small nugget of gold within a whole mine of fool's gold. It was much worse than a needle in a hay stack because of all the anticipation and then depression once coming out with worthless rocks.

Kraton resolved to continue limiting himself until after the Novice Boss gathering. That way, he could make it seem like he sky-rocketed his power straight after the conference, as only then would other high-ranking monsters know about him and watch him more closely than before.

2 months...

1 month...

With two days until the new year Kraton had only just reached level 9. Two months to gain one and a half levels, this certainly slow progress however it would all be worth it in a few more days. Maybe some high level bosses may even become a mentor, or just give out some helpful pointers. No matter how big or small the help was, Kraton would definately take advantage of it. He only had to impress them first.

That night, the hairy figure of Kraton tossed and turned on top of his rock bed, at one point he rolled right into the 'massive' pile of scrap, sitting up and cursing harshly his eyes were bloodshot and dark, heavy bags hung underneath his eyes. His body was exhausted fatigued, yet his mind was clear and sharp as daylight. There was still two more days and another night before the gathering, yet he could not sleep at all! perhaps he had strained himself too much in the past few months, regulating his strength must have taken a heavy toll on his willpower, but that did not make sense! If that were the case, his mind should be empty and drained, maybe he really was too excited...

As soon as he felt his mind drift away into a slumber, a sudden noise rang out from not that far away.

*SCREEEAL*

When Kraton snapped his eyes open, the glowing stones by the wall were already unilluminated, this showed that it was no longer night, but daytime. Feeling that he had been robbed of his sleep, he prepared to punish the perpetrator until they could no longer appear in public, he would shame them as a weakling just like he was.

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[1] A.N) I have no idea what the equivalents of GCSE's are, have fun searching it yourself if you want to.