Fantaisy world online I : New Roads

New Roads! Chapter 56

Chapter 56: One Year Worth of Grinding

After spending so much time at sea, more than an ingame year actually, a lot of things had changed.

The most important facts were that players had discovered and started exploring all thirteen kingdoms present on the Valarian Continent, of course Centeped had quiquly opened establishments in each of their Capitals and main cities.

The Black Paws Island had been cleared by players and were now under dupervision of the seveth ranked player of the WoF, DarkSteed. The video of his victory over the pirates and his intronisation had hit first place on the official website while his guild The Abyss Riders expended in power and strength.

ZeroKiller had turned Chaotic after the dispertion of his guild, he now led a gang of highly feared criminals that plundered and slaughtered everywhere they passed. His bounty reached a thousand Gold Coins while members of his crew were between eight hundred and five hundred.
Rumors had it that he had passed the cap of the hundredth level too.
Truly a dreadfull foe.

The orc's race could now be seen frequently, new players that had choosen it had left the confine of the Orca Nation and spread above ground. Players came in masse to the city, eager to grind in the lower levels. They first had to gain the approoval of the elders through a series of small quest that tested their honor, volors and fighting abilities but once it was done they had access to the increasingly popular escorting quests comisioned by the architect guild and Centeped in a joint operation.

Ah, yes, i forgot to tell, the Architect Guild and Centeped finally settled an alliance. In short it states that all large projects such as the construction of Guild Halls (or in this case Orca's Canyon Bridge leading to the deeper levels, the joint city in the eleventh level or the underwater reconstruction of Millos and its additional tunnels) would be left into the hand of the Architect Guild while Centeped would have exclusive contracts conserning the aquisition of building materials, and protection fees if required.

Anyway, if Centeped had grown, i, as a player had spent the last year grinding my cooking, sewing and fishing skills. My level remained the same, only leveling once after i went to talk to Bulio and completed the "Find the Lost City of Attlantis" quest.

So i decided to grind.
Staying in Krint's Centeped Guild Hall i started by gathering information about the surounding hunting grounds. I ignored those of my current level and focussed on the ones estimated with level hundred monsters. Since my training in Fridol i always considered myself 40 levels higher than the indicated level, efectively making me a level 128 instead of 88.
I found several places that suit my taste.

The first was a cave inhabited by carnivorous silk worms and Moths of level 90 to 110. They hunt in groups of four to eleven and sot dense or filandrous silk projectiles.
I used my ki wall to protect myself from the silk while using my tailoring skill to retrive it into Silk Threads and Silk Bundles and finished the moth by cutting their wings with a Spinning Bullet and severing their head with my sword. The worms whose body was resistant to blades was crushed by my Ki powered fists.
It took me an entire day to empty the first cavern and days to clear it entirely. The last minster, a mini boss was a giant fly. It was faster and swifter than the moths and the noise of its wings was so strong that it was difficult to consentrate.
I leveled seven times from the cave and my Ki stats gained one stat from exercising.

The second place i went to was a farm that had been invaded by hobgoblins. While goblins were small, weak and slow and were the perfect monster for level 20 to 35 players, Hobgoblin were the size of a man, wore equipment and knew of warfare and tactics.
While i was far away their Hobgoblin Archers would attack while Hobgoblin Deffensers would position
themselves to surround me and limit my mouvements. In the end Hobgoblin Warriors would come in and confront me. When the Warriors were nearly dead Deffensers would come foward and protects them as they bandaged themselves. Archer fled before me, keeping a safe distance and shooting from afar.
I pulled out my sword but didn't use any Ki, as it was good practice for PvP. It took me an afternoon to finish them. after that i followed the few survivors to their hideout and wiped them out, emptiing their treasury and armory as i did. As i had to guard my War Steed (temporaly used as an extra inventory) and go back and forth between Krint and the hideout because of the loot it took quite a while. Ten days maybe.
I gained five levels and finally reached level 100. To celebrate i went back to the farm that had been plundered and brought back their crops and offered them a small, very very small part of the gold i had looted. The familly immediatly joined Centeped when i proposed it. I ended the day at the tavern.

After that i tracked and executed a band of thieves that were using Krint's sewers as passages towards high profile locations. The thieves themselves were easy to kill, what made this quest complicated was the difficulty of finding them in the first place as no one knew their real identity and the swewers were filled with traps and, frankly, weren't an hospitable environment.
Seeing my success i invested my time into bounty hunting, locating and capturing thieves, pickpockets, thugs, assailants and chaotic players.
As most of this was investigation work (namely beating up known villains for intel) i noticed that the many people whom i talked to were either affraid or outright frozen by my presence. It took me a while to understand that it was the 1000 Notoriety from the title The Mercyless that affected them. Since the normal citizen did not seem under its effect i concluded that it only worked on those i considered enemies. "Oh, well, good for me." was my only reaction.

After that i accepted all the quest that were located in the nearby forest and spent a week gathering all that was asked of me. Mushrooms, moss, tree branches, herbs, roots, berries, nuts, hides, clows, feathers.... it didn't matter how difficult the task was as long as it required for me to go to the forest and confront the ogres that lived in it i accepted.
By then i had stopped cou ting how many times i was leveling.

Ogres moved in groups of three maximum, wore loin cloths and wielded massive wooden maces., Their skin was impervious tonmagic too. But i did not use magic, only my ki powered fists, sword and arrows.
They were pretty stupid, it was easy leading them into traps or doging their obvious attacks. I went through the forest grinding in a spiral towards the center of the forest so that none of them may escape me.

After killing the Ogre Boss, an albinos ogre wielding two iron war-mace, i was out of hunting ground so i left Krint.
I checked my status window just before passing Krint gates for the last time.

[Name: Ben Varrand
Race: Human
Level: 112
Job: Conquering Trade Emperor
Guild: Centeped

Vitality: 178 +28 (51%)
Endurence: 156 +58 (51%)
Toughness: 155 +39(51%)
Strength: 156+52(51%)
Speed: 171+42(51%)
Dexterity: 161+54(51%)
Inteligence: 248+9(51%)
Luck: 69+7(51%)
Fame: 7409+1100(51%)
Ancient Rune Knowledge: 129(51%)
Leadership: 115+30(51%)
Respect: 355+25(51%)
Honor: 354+25(51%)
Ki: 126+60(51%)
Notoriety: 0+1000(+51%)
Still 125 stat points to attribute.

Maximum Health: 1625
Maximum Mana: 2005
Maximum Ki: 635
Maximun Men: 205]

I put fourty stats in strength, Speed and ten each in Intelligence, Dexterity, Vitality, Toughness and Luck had the rest.

[Vitality: 188 +28 (51%)
Endurence: 196 +58 (51%)
Toughness: 165 +39(51%)
Strength: 196+52(51%)
Speed: 211+42(51%)
Dexterity: 171+54(51%)
Inteligence: 258+9(51%)
Luck: 74+7(51%)
Fame: 7409+1100(51%)
Ancient Rune Knowledge: 129(51%)
Leadership: 115+30(51%)
Respect: 355+25(51%)
Honor: 354+25(51%)
Ki: 126+60(51%)
Notoriety: 0+1000(+51%)
Still 0 stat points to attribute.

Maximum Health: 1675
Maximum Mana: 2055
Maximum Ki: 635
Maximun Men: 205]

Since i had visited all of the kingdoms in Northern Valarian it was time to head South.