Start
Riven Kael allocated all 5 of his free attribute points into agility.
He then took a glance at his combat stats:
Health: 130
Physical Attack: 13 (+10)
Physical Defense: 13
Elemental Resistance: 15
His physical attack of 13 points was contributed by his strength attribute, and the 10 points inside the parentheses were from his basic beginner's short dagger.
When every player first arrives in the Land of the Abandoned Gods, they receive a matching starter weapon suited for their class.
Broken Iron Short Dagger (Low Quality): Gray quality. Attack +10
Riven held the Broken Iron Short Dagger in his hands and toyed with it for a moment.
In his past life, though he was a warrior, he had used short daggers before. Of course, when using a weapon that didn't match one's class, it would only deliver 70% of its effectiveness.
"The feel is decent," Riven said with a slight smirk.
He looked at his "Physical Attack" stat.
A 23-point attack is what most beginners would have at the start.
This revealed just how overpowered his Shadow Step skill's 90-point attack power was!
Riven gripped the dagger and immediately planned to leave the town and start hunting monsters.
Whether for leveling up or gaining evolution points, killing monsters was the key to progress. The more, the better!
At this point, no one knew that the monsters in the Land of the Abandoned Gods were far from the usual ones found in other MMORPGs, who would stay in one place waiting for players to approach.
That was the most terrifying aspect!
In the eyes of the monsters, every player who leaves the safety zone town is a walking source of lifespan!
Monsters will actively seek out players, and sometimes they hunt in packs, attacking and killing players to steal their lifespan!
"Lifespan is divided into two types: tradeable and non-tradeable."
"The lifespan we start with is non-tradeable… I currently have 75 years."
Non-tradeable lifespan's only purpose is to keep someone alive.
As for tradeable lifespan, it has much more utility.
It can not only keep someone alive but can be traded for resources, and more importantly, it can be consumed to bring over equipment and skills from the game into reality!
This allows players to have extraordinary abilities in the real world as well!
"Tradeable lifespan can only be obtained from the monsters in this game."
"Meanwhile… the monsters in the game also target the lifespan on us players. Whenever they steal a player's lifespan, they evolve and become stronger."
Being a reincarnated player, Riven understood all of this very well.
Leaving the town meant danger.
One wrong move, and he could be hunted down by a pack of monsters!
Were players the hunters?
Not at all.
In the Land of the Abandoned Gods...
Weak players are nothing more than prey!
That's why many players struggle just to survive.
Not only do they fail to kill monsters and gain lifespan, but some of them even get killed by monsters repeatedly, losing all their lifespan!
Unable to kill monsters and having their lifespan drained away...
They are left waiting for their lifespan to hit zero and perish!
Therefore, in the Land of the Abandoned Gods, monsters can be seen as another kind of player—survival of the fittest.
Even in Riven's previous life, the road to rising to the top had been tough.
And with Lyra Kael as an additional burden at that time, it had been even more difficult...
"This time around, I'll level up much faster by solo grinding."
Riven Kael thought to himself.
He held his Broken Iron Short Dagger and headed out of the town.
Along the way, he noticed some players grouping up.
On the side of the road, a chubby boy looked around, bewildered: "Hey, where is this place? The Land of the Abandoned Gods? What's a profession? What's a codename... I just woke up after a night of gaming, am I hallucinating?"
Nearby, a young man wearing glasses was just as confused, "I don't know either, I was up studying videos all night and just fell asleep, then suddenly woke up here?"
The chubby boy grinned, hearing this, "Bro, what kind of video were you watching? Mind introducing it to me?"
Riven paid them no mind.
It was normal for the first batch of players entering the Land of the Abandoned Gods to have such interactions.
Suddenly, five beams of white light appeared in front of Riven.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Five figures materialized in front of him...
"Almost forgot, this is the respawn point," Riven thought as he prepared to walk around them.
Then, a girl in a black short-sleeve shirt appeared in front of him.
She seemed a little pale, likely from just dying.
Three men and another woman appeared beside her, looking like they were part of a team and had just respawned after dying from a wild monster.
It was obvious...
Their remaining lifespan had been halved!
"That wild monster was too strong! A single bite took half of our health! How are we supposed to fight?" one of the men complained.
"It was just the weakest level 1 creeper! We surrounded it, and yet we only took away a third of its health?" another added.
"We got wiped out in an instant…" another sighed.
"Elara, what should we do now?" they all looked toward the black-shirted girl, their team leader.
Riven Kael immediately recognized her as a hidden class!
Since regular archers used short bows as their initial weapons, but this girl wielded a longbow instead, it was clear she was something special.
"That wild monster was too strong, right? We're already at a disadvantage here," Elara, the team leader, commented.
With that, one of the girls, with long soft hair, approached Riven directly, "Big brother, would you join our team? The wild monsters are too strong outside. We can't handle them alone. Our team has already been wiped out once, so we have experience!"
Hearing that, Riven couldn't help but laugh.
Experience?
More like the experience of dying...
He shook his head, completely ignoring the girl, and continued walking toward the town's exit.
His attitude was clear: he wasn't interested in joining their team.
Elara and the other three men's expressions darkened.
They didn't expect that this man, who looked like an assassin, would turn down their invitation so coldly...
And most importantly, he seemed ready to leave the town on his own!
"Heh, this guy is leaving alone? We've got five people, and we couldn't even handle the wild monsters!" one of them mocked.
"He thinks he can take them down by himself?"
"Don't be so quick to judge. He's probably an assassin class, and if things go south, he can always escape," another player remarked.
As they chattered among themselves, Elara, who had instinctively checked Riven's information when he got close, saw his codename.
"Codename 'Shadow'? Trying to be all mysterious," Elara smirked, looking at Riven's back. "I'll see how you die... Let's follow him."
With a wave of her hand, Elara led her team to follow him.
They weren't particularly interested in seeing his demise, but this strange place was so eerie that Elara wanted to observe others for more information!
Riven's reached the edge of the town.
The boundary wasn't very obvious, just some dilapidated wooden fences.
Once he crossed them, the safety zone was no more.
As he left, he noticed that Elara and her team were trailing behind at a distance.
Shadow Step!
Without hesitation, Riven activated his skill.
In an instant, his form melded into the surroundings, and to Elara and her team, he vanished without a trace!