New Plan

After taking a short break, Kaden logged back into the game and still lingered around the stone monkey territory. He had no plans of leaving the place for now.

Under level 20, this was one of the decent leveling spots meant for large groups to efficiently farm experience points. Since he was already here, he might as well make use of the situation and grind out some levels.

Kaden swung his dagger around as he stood well placed with his back against another sturdy tree facing a horde of the stone monkeys. He was pretty much following the same strategy this time too, except now he had another beast at his beck and call.

Kaden was not sure just how useful Umbra was going to be considering that the beast was significantly weaker than the Level 15 plus stone monkeys but he quickly saw that he was worrying unnecessarily.

While the scrappy imp used its wings to evade the attacks of the relentless monkeys, the big black dog used its shadow step to swiftly maneuver through the tribe and deal lethal damage with its paws.

The two barely took any damage while they dealt blow after blow to the stone monkeys, every hit striking a vital point thanks to the high intelligence of the two creatures.

Kaden also activated Sprint and Nimble Steps on cool down and this combined with Inferior Dagger Mastery increased his damage output tremendously.

All three of them were clearing the cartload of stone monkeys so fast that the whole group was massacred within minutes.

The stone monkeys were aggressive in nature and their usual strategy was to overwhelm the enemies with their numbers and their raw strength and defense.

So the entire battle was extremely intense but at the end of it, Kaden gained a level, and both Scrap and Umbra gained a level too.

Kaden decidedly stayed in the same spot for a couple more hours and slaughtered more of the stone monkeys, taking regular breaks.

By the time they left the area, Kaden had once again gained a level and the shadow stalker also gained another level, now catching up to the imp's progress.

In the meantime, Kaden had mulled over a few things and had somewhat formed a plan in his mind. In the game, typically when a player chooses his class, they are usually able to choose some of the main kingdom quests.

These are the main quest lines of the game and some of them lead to the player either choosing the Elysian Order or the Dark Legion.

The Elysian Order players mainly hang around and do quests from the affiliated kingdoms while the Dark Legion players hang around those affiliated kingdoms.

In his last lifetime, both of these factions were equally famous and there were several popular players who stemmed from both. The only condition was that one faction couldn't enter the other territory without a proper questline or purpose.

Kaden was obviously kicked out as the city he had tried to enter was an Elysian Order city.

In fact, he should have realized this the moment he saw the title. He had been so focused on all the things that he needed to accomplish that for a moment he overlooked something so basic.

However, he still had one big problem and that was the area he was currently in. In 'Apocalypse Online' players were distributed into different newbie villages in different zones of the world based on their real-life locations.

The zone which Kaden was currently in was the Elysian Order zone. Many small kingdoms dotted this zone and they all fell under the rule of the Eastern Empire.

Now to access the dark faction without any restraints, he needed to travel to an entirely different zone. The Nothern Empire and the Western Empire were both Dark Legion aligned Empires. Kaden needed to travel to either of these for smooth gameplay.

He either needed to traverse the colossal distance that spanned between the four big Empires or he needed to find a teleportation portal to achieve this feat. This was easier said than done, especially at a lower level.

This was why most of the players who chose the dark faction were players who started in that region. This was something even recommended in the introduction given when one started the game.

But now Kaden was stuck in a weird place. He was a Dark Legion player starting in an Elysian Order zone. In all honesty, this was not an uncommon occurrence at least at the beginning of the game.

There were several players who did this just because of the novelty of things and also wanting to get some advantage over the other players, but this novelty quickly wore off.

Hundreds of players and streamers who had fallen for this regretted their decision, complained endlessly, and most restarted their accounts.

This was a gut punch especially when it was revealed that one could casually switch to the Elysian Order or the Dark Legion at several points later in the game and have a more easier life.

So it quickly became a rule that if you start in the Elysian Order, pick them and if you start in the Dark Legion zone pick them instead, at least temporarily.

However, this was a rule only for others. For Kaden, these rules did not apply. He was not like the other players as he knew things that others had no idea about.

While the players who had chosen the wrong faction, in the beginning, suffered, four or five months into the game, it was revealed that there were indeed several corrupt cities within the Elysian Order kingdoms where players could easily start their character.

By then it was too late as the game's popularity had already skyrocketed and many people had already created their accounts and had at least reached level 10.

But Kaden did not have that problem. It was only the second day of the game! He could easily travel to one of these corrupted cities and start his journey there. Moreover, there were also several titles and first achievements in these corrupted cities.

There were also many titles and achievements in the normal cities but since only he was privy to information about these corrupted cities, he can possibly hit every single one of those without any competition!

Everything was going to be his! Kaden grinned in excitement.