The Origin of the Plague

Meanwhile.

After leveling up, Liu Xuan also gained 5 free attribute points.

He checked the effects of the three attributes:

Strength affects physical attack power, maximum health, and casting resilience.

Agility affects attack/casting speed, movement speed, and reaction speed.

Intelligence affects magical attack power, maximum mana, and skill cooldown reduction.

The setting of this battlefield, although the attributes were quite broad with only three categories, actually seemed quite interesting to Liu Xuan upon closer inspection.

The so-called casting resilience meant that channeling wouldn't easily be interrupted when hit or moving.

So under this setting, magic classes couldn't just mindlessly stack Intelligence; Strength and Agility also offered good returns—Agility could increase casting speed.

And physical classes couldn't just mindlessly stack Strength either, because Intelligence provided skill cooldown reduction, meaning shorter skill CDs.

However, how to allocate them specifically still depended on one's own role.

If you were a magic user in a decent team with teammates to protect you, then mindlessly stacking Intelligence to act as a stationary turret was also a good choice.

After considering it, Liu Xuan put all 5 attribute points he just gained from leveling up into Agility.

The faster his speed, the more stably he could kite monsters, and the more monsters he could kite.

After allocating the points, his Agility directly reached 16 points.

It was just that after leveling up, he found that the 6 [Vicious Hounds] were only giving 6 EXP per minute, which was half as much as before.

Leveling from 2 to 3 required 200 EXP, so at this rate, he would have to grind for over thirty minutes.

Although this speed was already very fast, Liu Xuan wasn't satisfied.

However, he still wasn't prepared to go check if there were higher-level monsters further back; since the efficiency of level 1 monsters was still okay, he would keep grinding them.

At worst, he would just pull more monsters.

With a full 16 points of Agility now, he could calmly handle various unexpected situations; even if he was running and suddenly got blocked by [Vicious Hounds] ahead, he had a way to slip away.

Moreover, his health was higher now, time to get reckless!

Relying on his overwhelming movement speed, Liu Xuan pulled monsters more and more wildly.

[Gained 10 EXP from troop ability]

[Gained 17 EXP from troop ability]

[Gained 23 EXP from troop ability]

10, 20... The number of monsters Liu Xuan pulled behind him grew larger and larger, as if a long black snake was following him.

This terrified the other people leveling up nearby.

"Holy crap, that guy has pulled almost thirty of them, right?!"

"Why does his speed look even faster than before?"

"Could it be he leveled up?"

"Impossible! He hasn't killed a single monster."

"Does this game have hidden classes? Is his trait running faster the more he runs?"

"But he's just pulling monsters, he can't kill them. Running his legs off is useless."

"Forget it, stay away, don't get caught in the crossfire."

...

[Gained 47 EXP from troop ability]

[Congratulations, you have reached level 3 and gained 5 free attribute points]

[You have a new skill available to acquire]

Not long after, by kiting 47 monsters at the same time, Liu Xuan once again spent less than ten minutes to reach level 3.

The slot machine reappeared, Liu Xuan pulled the lever, and a new passive skill appeared before him.

[Source of Plague: When you are attacked, inflict the 'Poisoned' status on the enemy, non-stackable.]

[Note]

[Poisoned: Takes physical damage equal to 'Maximum Health x 5%' of the poisoner every 3 seconds, lasting for 12 seconds.]

"Nice!"

Seeing the new passive, Liu Xuan's spirits immediately lifted.

Finally, a skill that could deal damage!

Although it belonged to the "damage reflection" type and required him to take a hit to trigger, as long as it could kill monsters, it was fine.

"This [Poisoned] looks like a fixed status type."

As a gaming veteran, Liu Xuan quickly understood the meaning of the [Poisoned] effect; there should be many ways to inflict the [Poisoned] status, but their damage calculation effects were all the same.

The [Poisoned] party would take damage equal to a certain percentage of the poisoner's maximum health.

For example, Liu Xuan's current health was 800. After applying the [Poisoned] effect to the enemy, the enemy would take 40 damage every 3 seconds, which was 160 damage over 12 seconds!

Those vicious hounds only had 150 health; taking one bite would directly poison them to death, and they'd even owe him 10 points!

However, from an efficiency standpoint, kiting monsters was still faster for leveling up than killing them.

It was just that after level 3, the [Vicious Hounds] gave even less EXP.

Only 0.2 EXP per hound.

Even if Liu Xuan pulled over 40 at a time, he only got 8 or 9 points a minute. Others might think that wasn't bad, but Liu Xuan felt it wasn't enough.

At this time, he glanced at the EXP required to level up, and was instantly dumbfounded—leveling from 3 to 4 actually required a full 1000 EXP!

In contrast, 2 to 3 only took 200.

"Isn't this inflation rate a bit too fast? How high will it go later on?"

Liu Xuan vaguely felt something was wrong, but there was no way to verify it at the moment.

After all, what he was experiencing now wasn't a pure game, it was a battlefield; he couldn't just rigidly apply his previous gaming experience.

...

The spawn density of the [Vicious Hounds] was limited, so he couldn't pull any more even if he wanted to; if he pulled the ones from the east, the ones from the west would drop aggro.

With no way to increase his efficiency, Liu Xuan prepared to head further back to see if there were any higher-level monsters.

Before leaving, Liu Xuan deliberately slowed down a bit, allowing some of the closer [Vicious Hounds] to attack him.

This situation gave quite a scare to many people watching him from afar.

"Look, that kid seems like he can't run anymore!"

"Fuck! The dogs are about to bite his ass."

"He's done for. I don't know what he was thinking pulling so many monsters when he can't even kill them."

"Look, he got bitten!"

"Three bites!"

"Is he still not dead? Not only does this kid run fast, but he's also a meat shield?"

"Could he be one of those legendary sports students?"

"If he's so amazing, why is he being so reckless? It'd be so much better to just grind monsters together with everyone else."

"Something's not right, how is he still alive? He must have been bitten seven or eight times by now!"

"Holy shit, how did the monsters die first?!"

The group of people watched in dumbfounded amazement. The weirdo who had been chased by dogs for ages suddenly slowed down and got bitten a few times. Everyone thought he was dead for sure.

In the end, the guy himself was perfectly fine, and the dogs died instead.

Could they have died of exhaustion? ...

Unfortunately, to avoid drawing trouble to themselves, these people stayed far away. Otherwise, they would have seen that all the dead dogs carried a Poisoned debuff.

...

Liu Xuan looked at his health bar, which had dropped by a small half, and didn't let the [Vicious Hounds] continue biting him. The EXP they gave was too little; it wasn't worth it for him to kill them.

Moreover, with nearly 50 monsters, he wouldn't be able to withstand it if every dog took a bite.

Killing these few was also just to see what the monsters' drop rate was like.

As a result, only a few dog teeth and a few torn dog skins dropped, and he didn't even know what they were used for.

There wasn't a single piece of equipment.

"The drop rate is this low?"

Liu Xuan felt like he was playing one of those ancient RPGs where you just grind monsters from start to finish and equipment drops are incredibly scarce.

Relying on his high speed, he put some distance between himself and the [Vicious Hounds], picked up the loot, and then ran far away to drop aggro from the remaining monsters.

At this moment, his health was down to 560 points.

After taking just two steps, Liu Xuan suddenly let out a confused "Huh?"

He noticed his health bar pulse, and his HP ticked up to 568.

A few seconds later, it rose again to 576.

Liu Xuan did a quick mental calculation. It seemed that once he was out of combat, he would automatically regenerate 1% of his maximum health every five seconds.

Looking at it this way, having a massive health pool came with even more advantages.