Corpse Explosion

Liu Xuan was oblivious to the arguments happening outside; all he knew was that he was about to level up again.

It took him less than 20 minutes to grind the 1,000 experience points needed to go from Level 3 to Level 4.

[Congratulations on reaching Level 4. You have received 5 unallocated stat points.]

[You have a new skill available.]

The slot machine appeared once more, and Liu Xuan pulled the lever without hesitation.

As the reels finally rolled to a stop, a new passive skill appeared before him.

[Corpse Explosion: Upon death, the enemy will explode, dealing true damage equal to 10% of your maximum Health to all enemies within a five-meter radius.]

"Badass!"

Liu Xuan subconsciously blurted out a curse of excitement.

This passive, combined with the ten-times health multiplier from his previously acquired [Giant's Blood], was simply invincible.

He felt that even if he didn't rely on kiting monsters to grind experience, killing them directly wouldn't be a problem at all.

Therefore, Liu Xuan dumped all 10 unallocated stat points he had saved from his previous two level-ups into Strength.

1 point of Strength provided 10 points of Health.

The stat panel's description stated that the exact amount of Health influenced by Strength varied depending on the class.

Liu Xuan didn't know if the 1:10 ratio for his Pacifist class was considered high, but he was quite satisfied with it.

10 points of Strength meant 100 points of base Health, and multiplied by the 10x bonus from [Giant's Blood], that was a direct increase of 1,000 Health!

Now, Liu Xuan's stats looked like this:

Name: Liu Xuan

Faction: Human Empire (Blue Star, Huaxia)

Class: Pacifist

Level: 4

Strength: 15

Agility: 16

Intelligence: 8

Health: 1800/1800

Mana: -/-

Experience: 23.5/1500

Skills: Giant's Blood, Source of Plague, Corpse Explosion

Looking at the panel, Liu Xuan did some quick math:

With his current Health at 1,800, the poisoning effect of [Source of Plague] would deal 90 damage per tick, and a full duration would deal a whopping 360 damage!

Leaving combat would automatically regenerate 1% Health every 5 seconds, which was 18 points.

The most ridiculous thing was [Corpse Explosion]—a massive 180 points of true damage!

The [Killer Snake] only had 170 Health. Didn't that mean as long as one snake bit him, triggered the poison, and died, all the surrounding snakes would be blown to pieces?!!

Thinking of this, Liu Xuan immediately prepared to test it out.

After all, this wasteland was quite large. If the monsters died, he could just pull more; it wouldn't delay him at all.

So, Liu Xuan deliberately slowed his pace, letting the snakes behind him catch up.

"Hiss~!"

A [Killer Snake] slithered up and took a bite out of his ankle.

-35!

His health bar only dropped by a tiny fraction, feeling just like a tickle.

Three seconds later~

-90!

-90!

The poison effect triggered, and the biting [Killer Snake] was directly poisoned to death in two ticks.

The next second, [Corpse Explosion] triggered!

"Boom!"

With a muffled blast, the black snake's corpse exploded, sending an invisible shockwave rippling outward.

-180!

-180!

-180!

A dense cluster of damage numbers flooded Liu Xuan's vision!

Because it was a chain reaction, one snake exploding to death would ignite the other snakes within a five-meter radius.

Thus, the explosions chained backward for over a dozen meters!

In just a few short seconds, more than fifty [Killer Snakes] were all blown to bits.

"So satisfying!"

This was what grinding monsters was fucking about! It was way more satisfying than kiting them!

But barely two seconds after enjoying the thrill, he scratched his head with a conflicted expression. When it came to experience-grinding efficiency, kiting monsters was still faster for leveling up.

Didn't that mean he'd have to be careful not to kill the monsters in the future?

—I'm being chased by monsters not because I'm afraid of them, but because I'm afraid they'll die too fast?!

Just then, Liu Xuan suddenly noticed that the dead monsters had dropped some snake skins and similar materials, among which was a glowing gray orb.

"Could it be equipment?"

He walked over, picked it up to take a look, and found it was a bracer.

[Snakeskin Bracer]

Quality: Crude

Requirement: Level 1

Armor: +1 (Each point of armor reduces physical damage taken by 1)

"......"

Fine, one point of armor was better than nothing.

He casually equipped the bracer and glanced at the experience prompts:

After he reached Level 4, a [Killer Snake] only gave 1 point of experience.

And getting from Level 4 to Level 5 required 1,500 experience points.

"1,500, huh?"

Liu Xuan stroked his chin. Level 2 to 3 was 200, Level 3 to 4 jumped straight to 1,000, and now 4 to 5 was 1,500.

The experience jump from 3 to 4 was a bit too drastic; it didn't seem like a normal progression curve.

Liu Xuan analyzed inwardly, "Unless the developers are brain-dead, the massive experience requirement for 3 to 4 must be an intentionally designed bottleneck to prevent players from leveling up too fast in the short term."

Judging by this, the level required to conquer the Beginner Village shouldn't exceed Level 4.

Of course, that didn't mean soloing it.

It meant that under normal circumstances, a party or raid group would need at most Level 4—no, they would very likely have a chance to take down the Beginner Village at Level 3.

"Heh, in that case, I'll purposely grind to Level 5 before heading there."

Liu Xuan looked toward the direction of the village, the corners of his mouth curling up.

Although a monster only gave 1 experience point now, he just needed to pull around 50 of them at a time to still reach Level 5 in under half an hour.

[Gained 50 experience points from class ability]

[Gained 50 experience points from class ability]

[Gained 50 experience points from class ability]

[...]

Liu Xuan dragged another massive horde of [Killer Snakes] around the fields for nearly half an hour before finally hearing the familiar system prompt.

[Congratulations on reaching Level 5. You have received 5 unallocated stat points.]

[You have a new skill available.]

"Draw!"

The slot machine spun, and a new skill popped out:

[Potion Addict: The effects of consumed potions are increased by 500%.]

Looking at the new skill, Liu Xuan blinked.

He hadn't even seen a single potion up until now, had he?

But it didn't matter, it would come in handy sooner or later.

Once the Beginner Village opened, he should be able to get his hands on things like healing potions, right?

When that time came, one bottle would be as good as six!

......

After reaching Level 5, the Level 2 [Killer Snakes] gave even less experience, a mere 0.3 points, while leveling from 5 to 6 required a full 2,000 experience points.

Even with Liu Xuan's mob-grinding method, the efficiency was no longer enough to look at.

"Looks like it's time to take a stroll around the Beginner Village."

Liu Xuan felt that with his current strength, he should be able to take on the Beginner Village.

Even if he couldn't beat it, he should at least have the qualifications to take a look, right?

He immediately headed in the direction of the Beginner Village. The closer he got, the more he felt something was off.

The white village he had seen earlier wasn't because the buildings were white, but rather because it looked like it was covered in thick snow.

"Weird, it doesn't look like it snowed around here either. Did it only snow inside the village?"

Could it be some kind of ice-type monster?

Carrying his doubts, Liu Xuan continued to approach, soon discovering that the "white snow" was actually wriggling slightly.

It wasn't until he was less than fifty meters from the village that Liu Xuan finally saw clearly. That white stuff wasn't snow at all, but rather... rabbits?

A densely packed horde of white-furred rabbits covered the entire village!

On the streets, on the rooftops, on the walls—they were everywhere.

So many monsters?!!

Liu Xuan also found the situation a bit tricky. He only dared to stay outside the village, observing the enemies' attributes from afar.

[Bouncing Rabbit]

Level: 3

Attack: 20

Health: 100

Skill: [Frenzy] Attack speed increases by 10 percent per second during combat.

For a Level 3 monster, this rabbit's stats were pitifully low.

Looking at just a single one, an inherently strong skill like [Frenzy] did not amount to much.

The rabbit's health and attack were simply too low. In combat, it would be killed before it could stack the buff more than a few times.

The problem was that there was an entire village full of [Bouncing Rabbits] right here.

When you attacked one, the surrounding rabbits would all launch an attack on you. By the time you finished off the first one, the attack speeds of the rest would have already stacked up.

"The normal strategy would be for a large team to lure the rabbits out bit by bit and eliminate them in batches. Too bad for them, they ran into me."

Liu Xuan stroked his chin, an excited smile curling on his lips.

Such low health and such dense distribution made this the absolute perfect stage for [Corpse Explosion].