38: Global Shock!
As Baron Ghibbobo died, game notifications kept ringing in Tristan's ears.
"Defeated 15-level Gold Grade BOSS, gained 50,000 experience points. Experience cap has been reached, extra experience will automatically go to the experience pool."
"Hunting Moment activated, you have gained 1 Evolution Point! Current points: 7."
"This is the first kill of the Gold Grade BOSS in the whole server, you have earned an additional 100 free attribute points, 10 skill points, and 50 prestige points."
"Would you like to hide your nickname for the upcoming global announcement?"
"No."
[Player 'Blackshade' has killed the Gold Grade BOSS Ghibbobo Baron, inspiring players worldwide to keep up the good work!]
"Ding, your prestige points have reached 100, unlocking the Prestige Leaderboard. Would you like to hide your announcement nickname?"
"No."
[Player 'Blackshade' is the first to reach 100 prestige points, unlocking the Prestige Leaderboard. Keep up the good work, players!]
…
As soon as the announcements were made, players around the world stopped what they were doing.
What?
Did they hear that right?
A Gold Grade BOSS?
And Blackshade killed it?
That guy must be cheating!
Protests, we need to protest.
As for the Prestige Leaderboard, that's no big deal. It's just a leaderboard, probably not that important.
But when the two announcements came out, even Drake, who had a lot of confidence in Tristan, was shaken.
He thought Tristan's achievement of completing the Nightmare Difficulty dungeon first was unbeatable, but he never expected it could go even further.
That was a Gold Grade BOSS.
The Silver Grade Jerobi had already made him nervous, and now here came a Gold Grade.
How can anyone compete with that?
While thinking, another notification rang out.
[Player 'Ivan' has killed the Bronze Grade BOSS Windwolf King, inspiring players worldwide to keep up the good work!]
This was the first time Drake saw a new ID on the global announcement, and he couldn't help but look twice.
By the name, this player was not from their Valoria region.
"Sure enough, there are experts all around the world. We can't slack off," Drake said, reminding his team.
The others nodded in agreement.
Indeed, with ExoGenesis being a globally synchronized, cross-era MMORPG, the competition was bound to be far fiercer than previous games.
This was evident from Ivan's first kill of the Bronze Grade BOSS.
Valoria had Blackshade, but other regions shouldn't be underestimated.
…
In the newbie village of 9527, DarkSaber logged back in and saw the messages, his mood soured.
He hadn't expected that while he was offline to avoid trouble, that damn Blackshade had become even stronger.
Not only had he completed the Nightmare Difficulty dungeon first, but now he was even soloing Gold Grade BOSSes.
Absurd.
However, when Ivan's first kill announcement appeared, DarkSaber's mood brightened, and he said to his subordinates, "I think Blackshade's Gold Grade BOSS kill must have been a bug. His momentum is falling, nothing special. But Ivan's kill of the Bronze Grade BOSS shows promise—he has the potential to become a strong player."
His subordinates agreed, "Yes, yes, that's right."
A passing player who overheard mocked, "I heard that the Shadow Legion is a bunch of spineless guys. Seeing it firsthand today, it's true."
Others joined in, "Exactly, the leader is like this, so what future does the guild have?"
"I used to think DarkSaber was tough, but turns out he's just another weakling."
"Right, when Blackshade soloed the BOSS, Ivan wasn't even a blip on the radar. How can they praise him so much?"
"I bet Ivan had help to kill the Bronze Grade BOSS. Unlike Blackshade, who did it solo."
"I support Blackshade! He's the real deal!"
"Me too!"
The message spread quickly, and many players started to have a negative impression of Shadow Legion, especially DarkSaber. Some even brought up the previous incident where Shadow Legion had camped at resurrection points, causing many players to rally and cause trouble for DarkSaber.
Outside the newbie village, hundreds of players were having a blast.
In the end, DarkSaber, facing a numbers disadvantage, was forced back to the resurrection point.
DarkSaber, furious, logged off.
"Damn it, I'm going back to sleep!"
…
Tristan, oblivious to the commotion outside, had already added his attribute points to agility, bringing it up to 350.
[Attributes]: Strength 39, Constitution 14, Agility 344+5, Spirit 13
To be honest, Tristan felt his stats were a bit unbalanced.
But thinking it through, adding to other attributes didn't make much sense.
Increasing strength would improve his attack power, but did he really need more damage? Absolutely not.
Plus, once he completed the class advancement and unlocked dual-wielding, equipping the Bone-Slicing Daggers would give a significant attack boost, far more effective than increasing strength.
Of course, increasing strength did have its perks—it would allow him to wear heavier armor with better defense. But as he always said, it wasn't necessary.
Even if an assassin wore full plate, could they really tank the damage?
As for constitution, there was no point in increasing it either.
Tristan farmed high-level BOSSes. If he got hit, he'd pretty much be instantly killed, so adding a few hundred or thousand health points wouldn't make a difference.
And spirit was a stat for magic classes, completely irrelevant to an assassin.
In the end, agility was the most useful.
Take this solo dungeon run as an example—without the speed boost from high agility, he would have been caught by the BOSS's skills long ago, and wouldn't have made it this far.
"Let me save the 10 skill points for now. Shadow Stealth is already high enough, no need to level it further. I'll keep the points for emergencies."
Tristan quickly planned his next steps.
He was about to go back to the newbie village to turn in the quest, then head to the main city for his class advancement.
Once that was done, he'd unlock new skills. If any of them were useful, he could spend some skill points on them.
As for the announcement about Ivan's first kill of the Bronze Grade BOSS, Tristan had heard it too.
He recalled that Ivan was indeed a well-known player in his previous life, making waves early on with his skill and showing signs of becoming one of the top players in ExoGenesis.
But after ExoGenesis began merging with reality, Ivan disappeared.
Most likely, he had been killed offline.
As for Ivan's first kill of the Bronze Grade BOSS, it was probably due to him unlocking an SSS-grade talent!
But Tristan wasn't worried.
Even among SSS-grade talents, there was still a difference!
His Sniper God talent was definitely stronger than any other of the same rank!
Confident, Tristan walked over to the Wolf King's corpse and collected the loot.
Then, he cut off the wolf's head, inspecting it closely while wondering if this somewhat deformed head would be accepted by Cole Hunter.
If he failed the quest, things could get messy.
But he figured it wouldn't be a problem.
And let's not forget the Blood Core from Baron Ghibbobo.
That was the key item to expose the village chief's true identity.
By the time he finished his tasks, the blood pool had dried up, revealing the magic circle beneath.
This was the exit's teleportation array, which could send him straight back to an abandoned hut in the newbie village.
But there was no rush to go back.
Tristan remembered that players who used this teleportation array to return without the bloodsucker's aura would trigger the village chief's trap and be ambushed by ghosts.
It would be safer if he could equip a few pieces of gear to boost his health.
If not, he planned to use Shield Stealth to make a safe return.
He'd worked so hard to kill the Baron—there was no way he was going to lose to the village chief now.
Unfortunately, the Baron was level 15, and the gear dropped was too high-level to equip.
With that thought, Tristan decisively turned his attention to the Wolf King's loot.
The first item that caught his eye was a gray cloak.
[Wolf King Cloak]: Silver Grade, Defense +50, Health +800, Agility +20, Required Level: 10