Chapter 5: Jumping On A Pack Of Wolves

The difference in tier skills was like heaven and Earth. Just like monster ranks, skills also had ranks, they are varied by tiers. A tier 0 skill could affect another tier 0 player with 100% effectivity but once a player advances to the next tier; tier 1, tier 0 skill's effectivity would drop by 50%. Unless a player advances this skill by raising their proficiency by 100% up to 100 times, the skill would remain stagnant.

Players could reach tier 1 after reaching level 50. If a tier 0 player obtained a tier 1 skill, its proficiency wouldn't be able to reach 100% and would remain at 99%. Not only that, if a tier 0 player activated a tier 1 skill, with the compatibility in tiers, activating a tier of a higher level placed a strain on a player's body, this could either result in a weakening of their attributes or temporary debuffs on the player. Activating skills of a higher tier also tend to fail upon activation and when this happens, the player would be inflicted by a massive debuff, some skills would even give permanent strains to the player flunking their leveling speed greatly. Unless it was of utmost importance, a player should never attempt on activating skills of a higher tier.

---------

Back in the town, the subordinate who tried to follow Alon had immediately returned to the awakened hall. Sweat poured his body as his heart was beating fast, he mustered his fastest speed since he was currently under a state of fear and shock.

The bloody scene he had just witnessed continued to play in his head and just the thought of it made him want to puke.

After arriving, he immediately slammed the door close.

Bang!

"What the fuck is with the ruckus!?" The boss who was currently drunk fell on his butt after the loud commotion.

"B-boss! That guy, he's dangerous! He's a fucking psychopath! N-no, we should hide! If he finds out that I was following him, I'm dead!" The subordinate was in a daze of shock. His face paled and his body was quivering in fear. Seeing his state, everyone quickly went serious. They knew the guy very well, they had killed quite a few people so seeing another killer afraid shitless of another killer only meant bad news.

"Show me the recording." The drunk boss instantly sobered up after hearing such a tone from his goon.

"H-h-here..." The subordinate unhesitatingly played the record to a live feed so that everyone could see.

The clip was brief and was only 15 seconds long but that short seconds were enough to frighten everyone. Everyone's face darkened in shock, fear, and disgust. The only thing they could do was show sympathy to the victims and pray to God that they wouldn't encounter that psychopath.

As PKers, they know that killing another human was inhumane but they knew inside of them that they wouldn't die since this is only a game and with how realistic the game had been when they kill, they'd resort to bloodless killing since the smell of blood was distinguishable to blood in real life.

They could also choose to activate gore censorship since, at the very least, they wouldn't be disgusted by a corpse's sight and the majority of their victims were new players so their victims would have their pain receptors disabled. But in the latter game, pain receptors were very important since they would help a player perform at their very peak since some attacks needed the feeling of pain if they wanted to induce themselves to the game.

Although the game had a lot of inhumane killings, stuff like this rarely happened. Usually, those who enjoyed killing were mentally unstable people like psychopaths or serial killers, normal people would never do it and those types of players usually make up a very small margin of the population.

Everyone's face looked gloomy, it's not simply that this person was capable of doing such unrestrained slaughter, the fact that a level 0 player single-handedly defeated three level 5 players in an instant had been unheard of for the past month. Not to their knowledge, of course, there were a lot of players capable of such feats but in this town, no other news similar to this had been given any attention.

"Boss, let's not mess with him." The subordinate suggested.

"It seems so.." The boss revealed a wry smile. This player was undoubtedly an expert since he already had very high starting attributes. Unless they wanted to share the same fate as those poor red players, they should never mix themselves up with such a player.

Everyone had the same idea. They'd mind their own business and leave him with his own. Even if they know they could defeat the player if they ganged up on him, a few coppers wouldn't be worth all that trouble.

------------------

On his way to the Valley, Alon encountered a few high leveled monsters. These monsters were usually beasts but he had yet to encounter any humanoid monsters so defeating them was a walk in the park. Additionally, his experience of dealing with different types of ferocious animals helped a lot in dealing with these monsters easily so Alon didn't need to exert too much effort as he already knew how to deal with them by extorting their weak points, and as a result, he could exert less effort thus saving his stamina.

Stamina was a hidden attribute and is one of the most valuable variables of a player. Once their stamina depletes, they wouldn't be able to move for quite a while and their actions would be sluggish since getting tired was an actual thing in this game even if it's only virtual reality. This would add more challenge to players who wish to grind some levels, they couldn't take advantage of the system.

After a few minutes of walking, Alon arrived at Greenville Valley. He had gained 3 levels from defeating monsters that came his way and it wasn't long for him before he'd reached level 5. He distributed the free status points to his strength and agility in 1:1. ratio to balance his status and upon reaching the 100-point threshold on his Agility attribute, he was awarded another rune that was a speed-related skill. Unlike the previous skill, it seemed that his luck had run out as the skill he gained was subpar at best.

Ting~

[Alon

Race: Human

Status: Commoner

Title: None

Class: Warrior (Tier 0)

Level: 1 (30%) +3 (46%)

Rank: Awakened (Early)

Strength: 100 +14

Agility: 95 +10

Intelligence: 67

HP: 9900/9900 +300

MP: 670/670

Status points: 15 -15]

Ting~

[Dash(0)SPD: Movement speed is increased by 10% for 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Mana Cost: 5]

'Although it's a tier 0 skill, an increase of 10% is still good.'

Awoooooooo!!!

A loud howl of a wolf emanated from the valley as the surrounding trees shook from the waves. Alon had long detected the wolves from afar. He retracted his gaze at the source of the howl and found a giant white wolf that was at least 7 feet tall and 4 meters wide, along with this wolf were other dark gray wolves that were at the very least 5 feet tall and 2 meters wide.

When Alon stared at the white wolf, the wolf also stared at him back, despite being a kilometer away from each other, the wolf was able to sense Alon's presence.

'It seems like he could sense my killing intent despite being so far away. Well, then let's give this wolf a warm greeting.'

Alon grinned and started running towards the pack of wolves. As soon as the wolves caught sight of the incoming man, they growled and bared their fangs at him ready to pounce.

From what he could see, excluding the alpha wolf, there were at least 40 great wolves present. Despite the numbers, Alon was not scared one bit as his heart was racing in ecstasy. It has been a long since he had fought numerous numbers of opponents. One time he had fought against 50+ hyenas and that gravely injured his limbs but that had been many years ago. Now he wanted to experience that same danger by throwing himself into the tiger's den.

"Come!"

Awooo!

As soon as the alpha great wolf howled, the entire pack of wolves dived toward the man.

Ting~

[Great Wolf(0)] [Common Monster]

Level: 15

HP: 5000/5000

Boom!

Alon threw a heavy punch at the snout of the first wolf that came near him and its entire skull was crushed on impact immediately obliterating its entire face as its health dropped to zero. His experience quickly rose by 30℅ and his level increased by 1.

[Level Up!]

Alon had no time to check his status after leveling up as another wolf pounced at him from the side. He ducked down to dodge the wolf's incoming bite and grabbed one of its legs while it was mid-air then slammed it on the ground leaving a loud bang quickly depleting its health.

As the wolves got closer in numbers, Alon hurriedly activated Slash lopping off their heads before they even know it. Three wolves died in an instant giving him a chunk of experience.

A wolf tried to ambush him from behind but Alon's sensitivity and beast-like instincts quickly retaliated to the attack by clamping its open mouth shut and then activating Cut to beheaded the wolf, instantly killing it.

With the head of the wolf in his hand, he threw it at a group of wolves and destroyed their formation before they could dare to surround him.

Simultaneously, two wolves leaped towards him from opposite sides. Alon simply rotated his body to the side easily dodging the wolves by an inch. Missing their target, the wolves were stunned as suddenly, they stopped mid-air only to see that their tails had been yanked by the human.

Alon proceeded to spin the two wolves in a circular motion causing any wolves in the area to get flung away, some even had their skull crushed from the impact. This killed a batch of wolves who had been too close to his range and the wolves on his hands also died with their heads badly mashed into gore.

With that said, the number of wolves quickly decreased by half and most of the half were badly injured. Seeing as the numbers of the alpha wolf's pack decreased significantly, it let out a loud howl.

Ting~

[Great Alpha Wolf has activated Call of The Pack]

Awwoooo!!

As soon as the alpha wolf howled, a swarm of wolves started descending the hills numbering at least double the previous pack. Seeing the reinforcements, Alon couldn't help but grin as a flame of determination and thrill overwhelm him.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Alon pulled out the thigh legs of a dead wolf on the ground. When a wolf pounced at him, he shoved the entire leg to its throat causing it to suffocate. Alon then clamped the wolf's mouth close and pulled the thigh legs out. With the wolf's serrated teeth, it shredded the muscles of the thigh leg leaving only the bone out as it continued to suffocate from the meat in its throat that it couldn't swallow.

Alon didn't even care less about the suffocating wolf as he did the same procedure to another wolf and now he had two bones in his hands.

'Thigh bones are the strongest bone structure of a mammal, with this, I can have a makeshift baton.'

After getting comfortable with the bones, he swung it at an incoming wolf that completely obliterated its skull. Its eyeballs had burst out of its face and its brain splattered on the ground instantly killing the poor wolf. Alon didn't stop as he continued his massacre as more and more wolves swarmed around him, attacking from every angle.

-12

-28

-34

.

.

Alon couldn't defend himself from so many wolves at the same time but thanks to his constitution and attributes, added to his innate talents; Firm Resolve and Fortified Body. The damage he received had been minimized and he didn't have to worry.

Cut!

Slash!

As his skills finished their cooldown, more and more wolves died from the rampant attacks but the swarm of wolves started to overcrowd him leaving him with no space to retaliate. Having no choice, he opened his skill tab to check one of his skills.

'Just as expected, the skill execution is different.'

Alon was surprised as he found out that the skill, Machine Gun Blows had a sudden change in activation since he had thought that the system wouldn't recognize the two bones as weapons. The bones didn't add any damage to his attacks, it was simply an extended arm but it seems like the system was rather open with ideas.

Machine Gun Blows!

Upon activation of the skill, Alon swung his batons at every angle he could make, he maintained his accuracy as each swing he throw instantly popped the heads of the wolves like a balloon while after images appeared in every swing that extended at a very wide range. He also curved his body in a circular motion to expand the effectivity of the skill and while his body became very heavy due to the activation of the skill, his skill proficiency had increased by 80% increasing his damage by 120%. Not only that, the majority of his swings inflicted a Critical Strike which added to the duration of the skill.

A few moments passed by, and before he knew it, all of the wolves had died and their corpse splattered on the ground majority of which had lost their heads. It was a bloody sight and Alon who was at the center of the scene was covered in blood and his shirt had been tattered to bits only leaving pants that had some tears on the fabric. The bones on his hand had crumbled to fragments after the skill had ended which was only natural since a makeshift weapon couldn't handle the power of a tier 1 skill.

Slaughtering a huge number of wolves increased his level by 7 and now he was level 12. His body was currently aching due to the backlash of overexerting a tier 1 skill but he couldn't care less due to the system that popped up in his view. Every time a player reaches level 10, they'd get a random reward based on their performance and the reward could vary from items, materials, equipment, skills, etc. Alon seemed to be fortunate enough that the reward he earned was a skill, a powerful one at that.

[Weapon Enthusiast(Can Evolve): Anything the player holds is a deadly weapon. Any makeshift weapon you use is equal to 120% of the wielder's Strength. Durability can vary depending on the type of material the weapon is.]

The skill was just what Alon wanted. Plus it was a passive skill. Unlike active skills, passive skills had indirect activation, it didn't have any cooldown or any mana usage. It was like innate talent and unlike innate talent, passive skills weren't exclusive to one or two players, a passive skill could be acquired just like active skills.

Awooo!!

The Great Alpha Wolf was enraged seeing that its entire pack had been massacred by one man. Its blue eyes stared angrily at Alon as it immediately dashed towards him. Alon wanted to distribute the free status points but the speed of the alpha was too fast for him to ignore.

Quickly, he rolled to the side to avoid the throttling wolf, and seeing as it missed, Alon didn't wait for a second and began rummaging the corpse of a wolf near him. As it died, its body had become soft so Alon was able to rip its stomach open with ease. He then broke two of its ribs and with the sharp ends of the rib bone, he made himself a makeshift stake.

[Weapon Enthusiast activated! The weapon has been enhanced by 120%]

[Weapon Enthusiast proficiency increased by 1%]

Unlike the thigh bones, he could feel a sharpness in the two ribs in his hands. A wide grin appeared on his face as he looked at the enraged alpha wolf ready to pounce again.

"Come!"