Welcome back to the Tutorial…
William laid on his back. He had woken up in an area that was clearly not his original cell. It took a few moments of nothingness in his thoughts before he slowly began to recognize the old man’s area. He did not remember what had happened exactly other than the knight had loomed over him, vanished from its spot for a second, and finally finding a massive hole in his chest.
He did not suffer any pain from the death.
Yet, that did not mean he was not mentally scarred with seeing something literally disappear before his eyes only for it to reappear with a massive blade as thick as his thigh covered in his lifeblood. William couldn’t even see its arm move, much less attempt to defend himself. There wasn't even a question of intent or any other esoteric senses he could attempt to call upon.
This was the difference between an elite monster versus a mob.
Whether it was levels, skills, armament, or anything else, they all were on a different tier when compared to the Corrupted Guardsman.
William had been getting too confident in his abilities to survive and defeat foes that should have been far too strong for him. Now he had been given a reality check unlike anything before. Until the day he could finally see the black armored knight’s attacks, he would do his best to keep well out of its way. He could think of a few things he could do to minimize the effects of his death, but that didn’t deal with actually being cut into pieces by an unstoppable force for the moment.
He hadn’t noticed what the notification had said, he was more concerned with what was directly in front of him at that moment.
Enemy Detected!
Corrupted Death Knight (D+)
Danger Ranking - Death
“Death Knight…?” William said to himself as the words floated in his vision.
His eyes drifted down to the danger ranking of Death
William came to a very important decision: he hated how weak he felt.
He hated how pathetic he was right now.
He hated not having a choice or the chance to fight back.
He hated…
William took a deep breath and started to intentionally search for things to be thankful about to counter the nastiness he felt in his chest. Whether it was the levels he was gaining quickly, quests, the system, and finally the looping ability after every death, each of them were gifts he would be grateful for. It was just a matter of grabbing his rune orb and using them before attempting to hunt another Corrupted Guardsman or Soldier.
Though he had to hope that the orb did not end up out in the courtyard due to system shenanigans.
William sat up as he began to wonder how he would figure out not attracting the Death Knight from standing at the doorway after every fight, or worse, somehow getting in before he did shut it. He shivered at the thought of fighting more than one foe at his current level. That was a death sentence.
“Oh? William?” The old man peeked his head into where William was sitting. “When did you get back? I thought you went out to reach level ten. Don't tell me you gave up? I heard the mess of a fall down the sets of stairs, thought it was you for a second. Guess you didn't die instantly. That's an accomplishment at least.”
“Yeah. I'm about to go now.”
William stood up and rushed back towards the ledge the fight had occurred. He was careful to make sure that everything looked the same, including the doors were locked before he made the climb back up. Everything was exactly as it was before he had arrived onto the scene, even the parts the Corrupted Guardsman he had thrown off the ledge had crashed into.
He went up the stairway in the same exact pattern he had gone up last time. The first thing he did was grab his rune orb and watch as his system increased the runes held. William couldn’t help but feel a ton of tension melt from his body. He hadn’t done everything for naught.
Then he approached the first door towards the courtyard and clicked it open just slightly. He peeked into the hall and only saw darkness within the small area. The other door had not been opened yet. William took a deep breath and opened it all the way, he waited for a moment, fully expecting the Death Knight to appear out of nowhere and blast a hole through him again.
He let out a deep sigh of relief when nothing like that happened, especially now that he had probably reset the aggro of the Death Knight.
William closed the door and sat down with his back to the surprisingly cold wood. He pulled up his status page and considered his options. With nearly three thousand runes held, he could probably get three entire levels from picking his rune orb back. That meant nine unallocated attribute points to and potentially a new skill at level five of his [Knight Guardian Novice] class.
Status User William (1oPg72j9) -
[Class] - [Knight Guardian Novice (F+)]
Level - 2 [2/49]
Runes Held - 2993
Runes Needed for Level Up - 701
Strength - 13
Dexterity - 5
Endurance - 19
Vitality - 15
Intelligence - 6
Wisdom - 7
Arcane - 5
His endurance, vitality, and strength out weighed everything else so far, but they were boosted by his equipment, the medallion, and the ring on his finger.
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Fighting things that were stronger, bigger, faster, better technique, better skill, better footwork, better everything physically was not an intelligent idea, even if he had such a low intelligence stat. It was simply unrealistic at his low level of two. William was just thankful that the Corrupted Guardsmen were pretty predictable and somewhat fragile. He didn't doubt the Death Knight was nothing like that.
He considered the paths he could take from this point onwards, whether he wanted to min/max everything into a specific build or a general allocation of his stats all together to keep them around one another. If his plan was to use multiple classes, then it would be wise to have enough stats in all his attributes to keep up with one another. It was pointless to have a mage class if it was incapable of harming anything close to the tank or melee damage classes.
Then again, he didn’t really need to worry about the lack of stats. He wasn’t stuck on one class and only that class with an exponential cost to every level.
William would have multiple shots at the early cheap levels to gain that boost in attributes all the way up to level ten or fifteen. One Corrupted Guardsman would give him an easy two or three level-ups every time and it would be the same for all new classes he did get. That should help him catch up to the more focused, singular classes since they would take more time between levels once they reach level thirty or forty compared to level five. Those moments of stagnation would be where he would find his greatest growth, he just needed to make sure to take advantage of this rune farm he had figured out.
The darkness of that abyss still gave him goosebumps.
William frowned, he would need to leave this perfect area prematurely if the Death Knight’s aggro did not rest in between deaths.
This had become his brand new mantra to keep him locked in and not worry about an unstoppable monster luring right outside his senses that could kill him without William ever noticing.
He ended up deciding to raise all of his stats to a base of ten to twelve since those were the very peak of humanity before he would then focus on specific ones to bolster his most used class. It also depended on what type of skills, or social weapons he would receive later down the line.
William was already imagining looting the Death Knight for the slick, if edgy, black armor and the gargantuan sword. He couldn’t imagine what type of stat boost it would provide for him.
The first thing that he did was put five into dexterity. Now that he had more room to work with, he needed all boosts he could get to dodging and surviving the Corrupted Guardsmen’s relentless style of attacking. He had nearly been overwhelmed even with the monster carrying a messed up leg and broken gait. That left him with four more points for the rest of his trailing attributes. He could either put all into intelligence and get that to ten or split them up.
It took one moment before he finally decided to put two into arcane, one intelligence, and one into wisdom.
Status User William (1oPg72j9) -
[Class] - [Knight Guardian Novice (F+)]
Level - 5 [5/49]
Runes Held - 697
Runes Needed for Level Up - 952
Strength - 13
Dexterity - 5 (+5) -> 10
Endurance - 19
Vitality - 15
Intelligence - 6 (+1) -> 7
Wisdom - 7 (+1) -> 8
Arcane - 5 (+2) -> 7
William couldn’t help the massive smile on his face when he noticed that he had enough runes for another level, but to move his [Pathetic Tavern Brawler] to level two. This time around, he didn’t grab the [Skill Shard]s individually from his inventory. Instead, he mentally thought about putting them into the open slots. The skill slots flared red for a second before the [Skill Shard]s appeared inside of them. It reacted the same exact way when he had started switching back and forth between [Knight Guardian Novice] and his other class manually.
He was quick to level it up and throw both unallocated points he received into wisdom to get an even ten points there and then equipped his other class. That was two attributes taken care of after a single kill.
The issue now was that William could feel the serious urge to throw all of his [Rune Shard]s away and try to get another level up. It took a struggle to fight against the desire to fiend over the dopamine rush that was the increase in power, but he won in the end and decided against it. He wanted to figure out if he could use those for something else considering how plentiful the runes were from each kill. Everything out leveled him by so much that he thought of them as rune cows just waiting to be harvested.
It would be a waste of primary resources that could act as a replacement to the ‘Shop’ once he returned back to civilization.
William got up and began to test his newfound dexterity. He felt faster, quicker, with more acceleration, and a burst of speed that he had never thought he would have ever obtained in his lifetime. Even at his peak he was nowhere near this. It was a strange feeling to suddenly feel such a large jump between stat points after he allocated them rather than when he put them on. This felt stronger, maybe even more hefty than amalgamation of stat point boosting armor and items on his body. This change also felt more dramatic compared to his increase in strength, vitality and endurance.
Maybe it was just so low that even a small boost was a large significant change.
Once a bit more comfortable with his dexterity, he went back to the doorway and swung it open. William walked up the small stairwell towards the courtyard’s doorway where he paused to take a couple of deep breaths and prayed that the Death Knight was not still aggroed onto him. It could be right on the other side, just waiting for him to be stupid enough to open it. He doubted, even with his newfound powers and abilities, that he would be able to see it just yet.
Then again, he still had no clue what stat affected his perception and reaction time.
William cracked the door open and waited a few seconds for instant death. He began looking around when it did not arrive. A massive amount of tension seemed to disappear now that he figured out the Death Knight’s aggro had reset. The Corrupted Guardsman he had killed earlier was not sitting directly next to the doorway. Once killed, they did not return back with the loop. That would have been absolutely broken if he could continuously farm the easiest option without worrying about there not being enough.
Alas, anything he killed stayed dead.
He surveyed the area more thoroughly than last time considering he had a jump scare with the Corrupted Guardsman sitting directly next to the door. He found the place teeming with corrupted dead lying there on the ground, leaned onto walls and buildings, and a few even perched up on their weapons. It was more than what he had seen previously from the small vantage point of the tiny cellar window he peeked out of previously. Though there were no piles of bodies, rather they were strewn about into areas, some closer than others. He continued to search the area until he found the Death Knight standing there, sword pierced into the ground and posing like some heroic being.
It was facing the gate house of the stronghold rather than looking back at him. Prepared to fight an enemy that had never arrived.
He continued to study the large courtyard, noticing what looked like corrupted animals as well. Weapons on racks, massive cauldrons that looked like they were filled with black oil, strange pedestals with large gems as big as his head that were dim, and a distinct lack of any birds, critters, or insects in the area. He could see where the Death Knight would start to become a serious issue and make his escape back into the building more problematic than he was willing to risk.
William still had a few dozen corrupted soldiers and guardsmen before the Death Knight was too close for him.
None of the mages or archers were in a good area on the main grounds of the courtyard for him to make an attempt at trying his hand against one of them.
William pulled a sword out of his inventory. He snuck towards the closest soldier with a long spear that he could find. This one was wearing less metal armor and more leather with a large cap of metal on its head. It was only a few steps away, but again, he felt uncomfortable being within the same area as the Death Knight when he could quite literally disappear from his vision and strike at him.
The Corrupted Soldier looked very much like the guardsman because of how uniform the Imperial Standard was. Only the lack of metal and the weapon choice made them stand out at all.
William followed through with the same exact process he had done against the Corrupted Guardsman, swinging his sword as hard as he could onto its thighs in hopes to shatter or debilitate it. Again limiting its movement and speed all so he could kite it more comfortably. The Corrupted Soldier’s eyes snapped back to life with a vibrant sway flame of red. Its head snapped towards him, and unlike the Corrupted Guardsman, it did not scream or rush to grab him as soon as it woke up.
He didn’t wait to see what it would end up doing, instead he turned and bolted back into the room.
Enemy Detected!
Corrupted Soldier (E+)
Danger Ranking - Overwhelming
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