3 Chapter 3: Killing the Thief

Li Yao took out his disassembly knife and used collection on a Velociraptor Elite. Any player with a high-quality disassembly knife could collect materials from a monster's corpse three times.

In "The Ancient God World," only humanoid monsters dropped money and equipment, while animal-type monsters only produced materials, each of which could be harvested thrice.

However, Li Yao estimated that he was probably the only one able to collect so far, as in his previous life, it wasn't until level 10 that some people spent their spare money on a superior disassembly knife and discovered they could harvest material from animals three times. Because of this, many players protested against the official rules.

Break point collection could be gained once if you successfully exploited a weakness in the monster; you could still gather even without a disassembly knife. Learning the skinning skill could provide an additional harvest opportunity.

"System: Obtained Velociraptor Elite's Crown (Green Material)"

"System: Obtained Velociraptor Claw (White)"

"System: Obtained Velociraptor Skin (White)"

"System: Obtained Velociraptor Elite's Tendon (Green)"

"System: Obtained Arrow Shaft (43)"

A crown is a break point reward; only by continuously damaging the crown can you create a break point effect. A sufficient amount of damage to the crown is necessary to collect it during harvesting.

Arrow shafts were compensation obtained after killing monsters. Otherwise, even if Hunters filled all their bags with slow arrow shafts, it wouldn't be enough. He had fired nearly a hundred arrows to kill the Elite, but managed to recover forty-three shafts - roughly half.

After killing three Elites, Li Yao leveled up to level 1.

The game had been running for two days now. Ordinary players could only form teams to kill normal monsters, while the elites in the major guilds presumably had a very hard time killing Elites in groups. There were absolutely none like Li Yao who could solo-kill. Case in point, this was only possible with his rebirth technique; otherwise, such leveling speed was impossible.

Li Yao distributed the five attribute points he obtained from leveling up to three strength and two agility.

Levelling up in "The Ancient God World" is challenging. Even though Li Yao was challenging monsters above his level, and they were Elites at that, it took him three Elites just to reach level one. If he wanted to go from level one to level two, Li Yao would need to kill dozens more Elites.

This was also why, even though the server had been open for more than two days, the highest level was still only level three with no level fours yet.

At the same time, the three Elites had granted Li Yao a Spirit weapon and two Spirit defenses, which could be used to strengthen weapons and armor respectively.

These items were only dropped by non-humanoid monsters, with Elites and above almost always dropping one. Combined with the materials harvested, these monsters were certainly not neglected.

"Finally found one."

After Li Yao killed his fifty-sixth Elite and reached level two, he finally spotted a hint of yellow glow in a bush.

"It's a Bronze Treasure Chest. Should be able to get some good stuff."

Without even collecting the materials, Li Yao started to unlock the chest. The chests in the Beginner's Village didn't have locks, so anyone could open them.

System: Obtained Skill Book, Shadow Roll.

System: Obtained 50 copper coins

System: Obtained Bronze Great Sword

Shadow Roll is a Hunter's evasion skill, an upgraded version of sidestepping. It's very useful and applicable in all directions. Li Yao learned it immediately without any hesitation. With this skill, killing Elites would be much more relaxed, significantly reducing the previous danger.

Bronze Great Sword

Quality: Superior (Green)

Attack: 4-8

Strength: 3

Agility: 2

Equipment Requirement: Level 1

Hunters can equip any melee weapon except hammers, and while their attack can't be added to bow and arrow damage, the strength of three and agility of two is the equivalent of gaining a level.

While killing Elite Monsters, Li Yao also scoured certain nooks and crannies. According to statistics, three chests would spawn in this area, meaning there were still two chests he hadn't found.

Elsewhere in the same zone, a small group of players managed to kill an Elite Velociraptor after a great struggle.

The Brilliant Club, the one they belonged to, was one of the top ten clubs in China, with its Brilliant Guild being well-known too. You could say it was at the top of the gaming world in China.

The leader of this team was the President of the Brilliant Guild and a famous commander in China, Haikuotiankong. The team members were also elites from the pro team or the guild.

"I'm so sick of eating this bread." Said youngrongnaida, the priestess in the team, as she ate her piece of bread with a look of disgust.

Woshixiaoqingxin, a mage with a figure accentuated by her form-fitting clothes, gave a charming smile and said, "It seems like our Guildmaster has successfully created a character. What's this about being sick, though?"

"You bamboozler!" Haikuotiankong laughed. He turned to the shield warrior and said, "Dàshān, are you tired of it too?"

The shield warrior, Dàshān laughed and replied, "How can I be tired? Being able to follow the guild master and kill elites is much better than anything else."

"True, everyone in the guild must be so envious of us. Without our Guildmaster's excellent command, we'd still be fighting common monsters," Woshixiaoqingxin gave Dàshān a glance and asked, "Guildmaster, do you think we can be the first to reach level ten?"

"Without a doubt, we'll be among the first to reach level ten. But being the first to reach level ten is uncertain. There are many other strong players in other guilds and clubs. This game is extraordinary; the freedom mode is not conducive to us. As far as I know, there are many martial art experts leveling up alone," Haikuotiankong replied.

"Can these martial art experts solo-kill Elites?" Woshixiaoqingxin continued to ask.

"In theory, they can. But at this stage, it's just a theory. According to information from the guild, many individual experts have tried and failed, losing levels in the process. I suspect that it'll at least be a year or so before such people start to appear. As for soloing field bosses, that's probably several years away," Haikuotiankong responded.

The others inhaled sharply at this. They trusted Haikuotiankong's judgement implicitly. The cost of attempting to take on wild monsters and failing was much too steep given how difficult leveling up was.

Just then, their scout rogue, Dànzhi Bàojú's voice sounded over the team channel, "Guildmaster, I've found a lot of Velociraptor Elite corpses."

Their expressions changed. They had thought that only they could kill elite monsters in this beginner's village.

"No way, this can't be happening." Before the others could process this piece of news, they heard an exclamation on the voice channel from Finger-Blocker.

Soaring Sky asked, "What's going on?"

"Boss, there was only one person killing the elites, and it's Watts, the hunter we all thought was rubbish. I must be seeing things. He killed an elite monster without even touching its clothes," said Finger-Blocker.

Refined Youth breathed a sigh of relief, laughed and scolded, "Stop messing around, I almost thought it was true. Didn't you hear the boss's analysis? There can't possibly be such players at this stage. Hurry back, we've recovered, let's start the next round."

Finger-Blocker anxiously said, "I'm not joking. If the system allowed private filming, I would've sent you the video already. A single person killing elites must be a well-known player. I'm going to take a closer look to see who it is."

"Be careful not to clash with them, leveling up is the focus," cautioned Soaring Sky.

"Okay, I just want to confirm which club or guild this expert belongs to," confirmed Finger-Blocker.

Anxious, Soaring Sky scrunched his eyebrows, trying to make sense of the situation after gathering information from various guilds and clubs.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hill, Li Yao ended the life of a Velociraptor Elite with his final arrow and then reloaded his bow. Suddenly, he pivoted sharply and shot an arrow into the brush.

"Have you seen enough?"

Thud...

-6

A thief figure emerged and before he could respond, Li Yao had already retreated and shot a second arrow right at the thief's knee.

-15

The thief, who was just standing up, fell over.

Even as the thief screamed out in pain, Li Yao had already drawn his bow for the third time.

Thud...

-35

The arrow accurately hit the thief in the head. As the thief struggled to stand up, two more arrows struck and he collapsed, dead.

Shaking his head without a care, Li Yao picked up the shoulder guards dropped by the thief, saw that they were common equipment and threw them back on the ground before continuing to grind those monsters.

Li Yao noticed the thief who had been watching him for at least five minutes. It was risky to attract a thief's attention, especially if he teamed up with elite monsters.

"Boss, I got killed, dammit. Who is this guy? I didn't even attack," Finger-Blocker moaned.

"If he's that aggressive, just kill him and teach him a lesson," Soaring Sky casually suggested.

"Yes, it was my negligence just now. I won't let it happen again," Finger-Blocker snapped angrily.

...

Just as Li Yao killed a Velociraptor Elite in front of him, he heard faint footsteps behind him. Without making a scene, he shot a glance at the thief approaching him while he continued to shoot his arrows.

The thief crept towards him, not realizing that his movements were bending the grass beneath his feet.

When the thief was within 8 yards of Li Yao, Li Yao abruptly released an Arcane Torrent. An explosion of arcane energy unveiled the thief's silhouette.

At the same time, Li Yao spun around and released an arrow.

Thud...

With the power of the Eye of the Creator, Li Yao could bring down the thief with a single arrow.

But the thief was remarkably quick, turning into a shadow as the arrow hit the ground. He instantly appeared behind Li Yao.

Shadow Step!

Li Yao was slightly taken aback. He was confident there were no more than ten thieves who had learned Shadow Step at this stage. The thief's reaction was as fast as a professional player. Unbeknownst to Li Yao, the thief was indeed a top professional player.

As a quasi-God-level master with over ten years of gaming experience, cosplaying in his prime, Li Yao was set to outperform his past life.

The moment he saw Shadow Step, Li Yao used Shadow Roll. He cast two continuous Shadow Rolls.

Finger-Blocker jabbed his glowing dagger at Li Yao's shadow, hoping to stun him for at least a second. He had hoped to catch Li Yao off guard, with the Velociraptor Elite charging in to finish him off.

However, Li Yao swiftly rolled behind the thief with his Shadow Roll. The thief, having just caught thin air, now found himself staring into the jaws of a Velociraptor Elite and felt a sharp pain in his back.

Li Yao's quick kick sent the thief sprawling to the ground, and the Velociraptor, caring not in the least about whom it was attacking, made short work of the prone thief.

After kicking the thief aside, Li Yao quickly retreated and shot two arrows at the elite's crest, causing the already bleeding monster to fall by his feet.

Close and dangerous as the encounter before was, Li Yao handled himself brilliantly.

"He dropped a blue dagger. Poor kid," said Li Yao after picking up the dagger the thief had dropped. He then dodged the Velociraptor and jumped back into the heat of battle. Time was too precious for him to waste on idiots like the thief.

Meanwhile, the thief who had just met his fate was about to cry. His level dropped to one and he had even dropped his precious blue weapon.

Finger-Blocker, upon resurrecting, couldn't find Li Yao, "Boss, I can't find that guy," he said sullenly.

The team was speechless, resigned to only killing the elites on the outskirts because going any deeper meant certain death. Their hopes of revenge now seemed even further away...