Today is the fourth chapter. Everyone, please vote diligently. There will be another chapter at midnight. To rush the rankings, I'm putting my old life on the line...
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And so, five days after I threw myself into battle, it was evening, just as the Red Moon was rising. The location was still beside a small campfire on the vast Blood Wasteland. Four people sat around it. Uncle Lars was holding the nth group criticism session regarding my combat style.
"Wu, you have a great talent for combat and learn very quickly. So far, you've been completely unharmed."
Lars's tone was gentle, seemingly praising me, but having experienced the previous nth criticism sessions, I remained unmoved. It was like a teacher calling the worst-performing student into the office; the first sentence is often: "XXX, I know you've been studying hard recently, and the teacher is very pleased..."
"But..."
Just as expected. My heart tightened. I thought, 'How dare he try to fool me with such tactics? Who do you think I am? Back in the day, I single-handedly finished a large jar of cheap, expired tea in the teacher's office within one semester, earning the reputation of a 'proactive' student who attended class in the office.'
"There are advantages and disadvantages to this," Uncle Lars looked at me with a serious expression, not seeming to joke.
"The advantage is that you don't get injured. The disadvantage is that you haven't been injured."
What is that supposed to mean? Is not getting injured wrong?
"Wu... listen to me carefully."
Lars looked at my confused expression, smiled, and shook his head.
"Can you guarantee that you will remain completely unharmed in future battles?"
I shook my head very certainly. Are you kidding? Even a level 100 Assassin can be surrounded. How could they possibly dodge everything? Of course, if they had shield protection, it might not be impossible to pass through a field of flowers without touching a single petal, provided you have the courage to put all your Skill points into shields...
"So, have you ever thought about how you would react when you get injured?" Lars patiently guided, hoping I would suddenly achieve enlightenment.
I cooperated fully and pondered for a moment. Just as Lars thought I was about to have a great realization, I foolishly asked, "Reaction after getting injured?"
"Yes. If you get injured at a critical moment, what will you do? Will you immediately cover the wound and retreat from the battlefield, or roll on the ground in pain, waiting for the Monster to finish you off, or will you continue fighting without changing your expression?" Lars tried to hide his exasperation and continued.
"Uh~~, I understand."
Lars's meaning was simply that he wanted me to get used to being injured. To put it in a simple principle – if you want to hit others, you must first learn to take a hit.
Lars nodded in satisfaction, looking at me with a look of feigned kindness and said, "Since you understand, that's for the best. I'm doing this for your own good."
"Huh? Wh... what—?" A bad premonition suddenly arose in my heart.
...
...
The next day, the brutal training began. Lars kindly lent me the white Leather Armor he usually treasured immensely, which moved me so much that I squeezed out a few tears on the spot. When he kicked me into a team of Fallen, I immediately began calculating the probability of successfully embezzling this Leather Armor...
Fallen are different from Rotting Corpses. They have low Defense, low Strength, and short Life. Their advantage lies in their agile movements and high Attack frequency. Such Monsters are truly the supreme treasure for training one's Golden Bell Shield Iron Cloth Shirt ability. Their role in this aspect makes even Mythical Items pale in comparison. Countless people grew rapidly under their blades, then stepped on their Corpses to move forward. There was even an idiot poet who once sang their praises like this:
Ah, Fallen!
Mother of Class Holders!
With the hoe (small cleaver) in your hand, stained with sweat (blood);
You have nurtured generation after generation of warriors;
You dedicate your own Life, merging with it;
Do you see? Your milk has made them grow;
Gently, you depart, just as you gently came;
Praise you, Fallen, the most lovable Monster in this world;
Mother of Class Holders...
Of course, within moments, this idiot poet was strung up from a tree by angry Class Holders and tormented. Unfortunately, the poem had already spread, becoming a perpetual thorn in the side and eye of all Class Holders...
...
...
After I explored and discovered the rules of combat, I realized that in this world, getting injured is not such a terrible thing.
First of all, there is no such thing as fatal attacks on vital points, the kind usually reserved for protagonists in games...
How to understand the meaning of this sentence? Let's take an example.
Suppose you are currently wearing a piece of Equipment with 10 Defense. These 10 Defense points will be distributed throughout your body, but not evenly. For example, on sturdier parts like the arms and abdomen, the Defense might be less than 1 point, while critical areas like the eyes and throat might account for 2-3 points. So, whether you Attack the arm or the eye, the damage is actually similar. Even if there is a difference, it is only due to the maximum and minimum Attack values of the Weapon's Attribute.
This is something I noticed the moment I put on Lars's Leather Armor. As someone wearing Equipment for the first time, experiencing a huge improvement, I sensitively felt a warm current spreading from the Leather Armor throughout my body, distributing unevenly everywhere, with the warm current being particularly thick in a few Vital Point locations.
So, since there are no Vital Point attacks, are there negative status attacks? For example, if I stab someone's eye, the damage won't increase because of it, but will it cause them to go blind?
Although I didn't dare to test it on myself, I think this shouldn't happen. I believe there are some kind of governing principles restricting things, such as no matter how great your Strength, how high your damage, or how weak your opponent, you cannot destroy their Vital Points before they die.
Otherwise, the Classes of the three people watching the show not far behind me might need some prefixes added, such as the one-armed Barbarian strange uncle, or the blind and lame Paladin fierce uncle...
Uh~~, those suffixes accidentally added are definitely not my true thoughts. Don't guess wildly, everyone...
Thinking from another perspective, if it were easy to blind or cripple opponents, wouldn't many Class Skills become useless? For example, the Necromancer's Dim Vision. If someone could just slash the eye to cause blindness, while you struggle to only greatly reduce the enemy's vision, wouldn't that be ridiculous?
In short, the rules of this world seem quite bizarre to me, a typical case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, making it arbitrarily difficult to accept.
It's like if I were to take out a laptop now and analyze its functions to Lars and the others, explaining how amazing the integrated chips are and how complex the programs are. Even if they understood, they might not be able to accept it immediately.
Although it's meaningless, I still want to complain about the crude rules of this world. It's just too much. Even a random online Game novel has more rigorous settings; at least they have the concept of Vital Point attacks.
However, looking at it from another angle, such crude rules are most beneficial for someone like me.
In fact, the only motivation supporting me in this world so far is this – I don't expect to have three wives and four concubines and become a king or overlord like those protagonists. As long as I can have a stable residence, and with my identity as a Druid, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a virtuous wife. Then, occasionally I'll go out to fight Monsters, acting like a brave warrior who drives out the Evil Forces of Hell, and sell the dropped items to supplement the household expenses. A gentle and kind wife, good at managing the home, that's all.
In conclusion, after understanding this reality, my last trace of fear towards combat also vanished. Although getting cut by a knife still hurts a lot, at least I don't have to worry about being disliked for being disabled in the future and remaining a bachelor for life...
Finally, after several days of training, I could take n cuts without changing my expression and strike back n times, even if the knife was aimed at my Vital Points, I could treat it as nothing. In other words, I was finally assimilated by the Dark Continent's Mindset in this regard. After all, in the Dark Continent, there is no such thing as a Vital Point.
Just as I began to move through the Fallen crowds with an unchanging expression, trading injuries for injuries and using their strength against them (actually, the latter two idioms have no connection), Lars walked over, patted my shoulder, and praised me a few times with the look of a kind teacher and benevolent father. Then, he casually stripped off my Leather Armor and threw me back into the Fallen Camp, calling it enhanced training.
So, during the subsequent enhanced training, I mentally used methods like 'stealing the dragon and switching the phoenix', 'stealing the sky and changing the sun', and 'the civet cat for the crown prince' to transform the faces of the Fallen into Lars's appearance. As a result, my efficiency in killing enemies unexpectedly increased significantly, making Lars exclaim in admiration, thinking he was a good teacher.
...
...
This kind of combat continued for 3 days. I counted carefully. From the time I arrived in this world until now, exactly half a month has passed, assuming the units of years, months, and days on the Dark Continent are the same as ours.
This morning, I woke up exceptionally early, so early that even the Red Moon hadn't had time to hide yet. This was because Lars told me that we would be returning to Rogue Encampment by noon today. The excitement in my heart was indescribable. People who haven't played Diablo can never understand the status Rogue Encampment holds in the hearts of us Players. That is the Player's base, the sanctuary in our hands!
Moreover, from the information Lars revealed, at least hundreds of thousands of people live there, which made me even more excited. At the same time, I once again despised Blizzard's Rogue Encampment, which consisted of only a handful of NPCs, a few chickens and cows, and a wooden fence. There should be a limit to cutting corners; this laziness is practically defying the heavens...
(end of chapter)