Dungeon

With this announcement, the Second Life website exploded with posts.

Some were saying that the player Chained_Trickster must have cheated, others were praising him for being strong enough to kill a level 10 monster only hours after the game's release.

Finn also had a hologram in front of him, looking at the chaos his kill had caused.

The system didn't say that his contribution percentage was not even 1%, so everyone thought that Finn had soloed a level 10 boss.

When more players hunted one monster, the system calculated the contribution percentage and gave out the exp fairly to everyone who had dealt damage to the monster, so there was no way to steal kills between players.

But this didn't work with fights between monsters.

If players lucked out and managed to finish a dying monster just like Finn had done, the system would give all the exp to the players involved.

Which in this case was only Finn because nobody was brave or stupid enough to go hunting in the forest on the first day.

There was also a leaderboard of all players that showed the player rank based on their level, and when Finn opened it, he was straight at the top.

1. Chained_Trickster – level 6

2. WhiteTiger – level 3

3. Twilight_Butterfly – level 3

4. …

Except for Finn, all the top ten players were already level 3, and he knew most of them from his previous life.

WhiteTiger and Twilight_Butterfly were even two of the five strongest players in Finn's previous life who ruled the Earth with their strong guilds.

Now Finn, who was a nobody in his previous life, was the number one player in Second Life.

After reading a few more posts and closing the hologram, Finn got up to stretch his body.

He would be training a new technique that he saw the Moonlight wolf use.

It focused on hitting the enemy's blind spots in the shortest time possible between each strike.

Normally one wouldn't be able to start training a technique he had only seen for an hour, but Finn had a cheat called "Loki."

'The technique predicts the enemy's future movement and finds a window of opportunity to strike the enemy's blind spot. This technique is difficult to learn and even harder to master, but with me here, you will be able to learn it in no time.'

Loki explained the technique to Finn with an evil chuckle.

Finn tried executing the technique, but he had already made a mistake in the first move, and suddenly he felt like his body was being electrocuted.

He fell to the ground and spasmed for a few seconds.

'Every time you make a mistake, I will shock your body and tell you what you did wrong and how to fix it. This will help you learn faster as it will force you to not make mistakes.'

Loki snickered as he explained what Finn did wrong.

"You can electrocute my body? Is that not interfering with the game…?"

Before Finn could finish whining, another shock went through his body and he fell to the ground again.

'No, it is not. So, quit whining and start training.'

Finn begrudgingly got up and started training the new technique.

This time he did his best to not make a mistake, but doing his best was not enough because he was getting electrocuted again and again.

---

The sun was starting to peek from behind the horizon as it illuminated the land.

It was now morning in Second Life, but in real life, it was still the same day as when Finn had logged in.

This was because of the time difference, one hour in real life was two hours in Second Life.

Finn was lying on the ground in the forest, covered in sweat.

His breathing was heavy, and he looked like he had just completed a marathon, but he had a wide smile on his face.

That's because of the blue window in front of him.

[You have gained a new skill, Vital hit]

Name: Vital hit

Mastery: 1%

Type: Active

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Ability: When activated, targets the enemy's blind spot. This attack delivers 150% to 200% damage.

The system gave Finn a new skill based on the technique he was learning.

This skill was only a bonus, though. Finn had now learned the basics of his killing technique, and to further his mastery of it, he needed to fight live targets.

He could now not only roughly predict an enemy's movement and strike its blind spot, but he could also use this skill to do bonus damage, up to two times the amount that would normally be dealt.

Getting up from the ground, Finn ate some jerky and drank some water that all the players had gotten for free in the beginning and decided to find Grawdr's den to see if he had anything inside it.

---

Following the footprints, he kept looking for it, but no matter how far he went, he couldn't find it.

He even lost the footprint path, but, not wanting to give up, he kept going in the same direction.

Soon he arrived in front of a cave, but this cave was too small for Grawdr to enter.

Happy that he had finally discovered a cave, Finn entered it and was met with a system message.

[You have entered the dungeon Kobold cave – rank F]

[Your quest, Searching for the lost son, has been updated]

Name: Searching for the lost son

Rank: E

Description: The blacksmith's son went missing in the forest and has yet to come back. It seems that he has disappeared after entering the Kobold cave. Go inside and safely bring him back.

Reward: Blacksmith Druhan's family heirloom

Finn looked at the system messages and thought about the dungeon.

Normally an F-rank dungeon this early in the game would have been impossible to do solo and one would need a party of players.

But Finn was almost level 7, and he had already learned the basics of a strong technique.

'You should go in. The kobolds will serve as good training partners if you want to progress in your mastery of your Vital hit technique.'

With a nod, Finn entered the dungeon, which was a cave illuminated by torches that were mounted on the walls.

The cave was slightly damp, and only the sound of water drops falling could be heard echoing throughout the cave.

Finn kept walking deeper into the cave, where he finally met his first kobolds.

They looked like lizards, but they had brown fur instead of scales growing on them, and they were standing upright on their two back legs at a height of approximately 140cm.

There were two of them, one with a stone spear in his hand and the other with a slingshot and a pouch tied to his waist that probably held his ammunition.

Finn guessed that they were on guard duty, but the kobold with the spear was leaning on it while sleeping.

The other kobold was awake, but he also looked sleepy.

---

The tired-looking kobold was watching the tunnel leading outside of the cave, and just like every day, he wanted nothing more than to return deeper into the cave where he could take a nap.

Suddenly, one of the torches that was the farthest from him stopped burning, then another.

This continued happening, and the kobold felt like the darkness was getting closer to him.

Thinking he was hallucinating, he started rubbing his eyes, but when he opened them, only one torch remained between him and the darkness.

He felt like there was a predator eyeing him from the darkness, preparing to sink his teeth deep into his skin.

The kobold started trembling with fear, and as he turned to look at his partner, the last torch that remained between him and the predator suddenly went out.

SPLURT THUD

The cave echoed with two quiet slashes and the sound of two bodies hitting the ground, then there was silence once more.

It was like the darkness ate those two kobolds.

---

Meanwhile, Finn was looking at his status screen after killing those two kobolds.

They were level 3, and he now finally had enough exp to reach level 7.

He added his new attribute point to agility because, now that his strength was pretty high, he needed to raise his agility.

[You have killed a kobold - level 3 and gained 50 exp]

[You have killed a kobold - level 3 and gained 50 exp]

Name: Chained_Trickster

Class: None

Level: 7 (0/2000)

Skills: Stealth (2%), Vital hit (1%)

Attributes: Strength 26, Intelligence 19, Endurance 12, Agility 21

Titles: Loki's blessed, Owner of the black feather

The way Finn extinguished the torches relied heavily on his black clothes, which made him invisible in the darkness.

He used his black cape to cover the torches, grab them, and douse them on the ground.

The kobold would have probably realized that something was wrong, but with how tired he was, he only saw the torch flames disappearing one after the other.

Once the last torch went out, Loki helped Finn navigate through the dark cave and slaughter the two kobolds.

He put the two corpses and their weapons into his inventory, but he kept the pouch filled with small stones and tied it to his waist.

Walking deeper into the cave, Finn started hearing a loud festive atmosphere and soon arrived in a huge circular hall filled with kobolds either sleeping or eating.

On the other side of the hall there was a stone throne decorated with various bones, and sitting on it was a two-meter-tall fat kobold who kept chewing on a thick piece of meat.

Next to him was a cage with a half-naked, skinny human curled up in one of the corners.

He had black, unkept hair, just like the blacksmith in the Dargon's Maw Village.

Even though he currently had a skinny body, Finn noticed that he had developed arm muscles that were shivering with cold.

After seeing the man and recognizing who he was, Finn smiled and whispered to himself.

"Found you."