Chapter 15: An Unfair Advantage

Translator: Sparrow Translations  Editor: Sparrow Translations

Wang Yu was extremely intrigued by the small Taiji emblem.

Before changing jobs, Wang Yu had done some research into the emblems that each job would have. For example, the Fighter would have a small fist shaped emblem, while the Qigong Master would have a small Qigong symbol. For the Taiji symbol, an eastern construct, to appear in a western game like this was quite peculiar.

Wang Yu opened the information page to look at the job’s introduction.

Hidden job: Martial Artist

Passive Skills:

[Son of Heaven] – Every time the player levels up, he will gain 7 attribute points.

[Full Body Mastery] – Able to learn the skills from all branches of the Pugilist job.

[True Expert] – The Martial Artist has a chance to turn his actions into a fixed skill.

[God of Arms] – Grants the Martial Artist complete mastery of all weapons, equipping any type of weapon will raise the Martial Artist’s Physical Attack by 10%.

After looking at the Martial Artist’s skills, Wang Yu was utterly stunned… even though Wang Yu did not play any computer games, he was no fool, he could clearly tell just how over powered this job was.

[Son of Heaven] gave Wang Yu two more attribute points than the average player, while [Full Body Mastery] allowed him to learn at least twice the number of skills. No matter how lousy a player was, as long as he had these two skills, anyone could become an expert.

Naturally Wang Yu did not think much of these two skills. He was already strong enough by himself, this was not something the attributes in this game could measure up to.

What excited Wang Yu the most was the skill [True Expert]!

This skill would allow Wang Yu to test his true abilities.

It had already been said that the quality of the Pugilist job revealed a lot about the level of knowledge it’s programmer had towards martial arts.

Hence the skills of the Pugilist class, in the eyes of Wang Yu, were rather poorly designed…

Even though Wang Yu had his own set of martial arts skills, the game system had used its own set of arbitrary criteria to judge Wang Yu’s skills. Therefore no matter how exquisite the moves Wang Yu displayed were, they were only viewed as normal attacks by the system.

Now that he had the skill [True Expert], Wang Yu had the chance to turn his own martial arts moves into skills. Sooner or later, all of Wang Yu’s attacks would be recognised as skills by the system.

Even though other people might not give this skill a second glance, but for someone like Wang Yu, [True Expert] was nothing short of a godly skill!

But what was the deal with the [God of Arms] skill? It was simply going against the specifications laid down by the game system!

“Wasn’t it said that Pugilist’s wouldn’t have any weapon mastery? Then why did they create a skill that gives a mastery of all weapons in the game?”

Wang Yu suspiciously asked the Informant.

The Informant coldly laughed: “That’s only for those ignorant Pugilists that chase their idiotic dreams and completely gave up one of the fundamental paths of a Martial Artist, weapon skills! As a martial arts exponent, if one doesn’t understand the intricacies of the weapon arts, how can you still call yourself a Martial Artist?”

“Mm, you’re right!” Wang Yu nodded as he recalled the time when he was creating his character. The job description of the Pugilist had clearly stated – Your arms and legs will be your weapons, your bravery shall be your defense!

No wonder the system did not give the Pugilist any weapon mastery, but this statement was simply too arrogant!

What came next was to learn some skills, but that wasn’t free even for the Martial Artist which could learn the skills from other jobs as well.

Learning skills would naturally cost a small sum of money for Wang Yu.

Even though Wang Yu was living a simple and frugal life in the real world, but in <<REBIRTH>> he could be considered someone with considerable wealth and status.

While others were still scouring the map to complete quests in order to earn their first gold coin, Wang Yu already had more than 30 gold coins in his inventory.

At this current point in time where the game had not implemented the option to change real currency into ingame cash. Other than the guild leaders of the large guilds, there was hardly anyone who could match up to Wang Yu in terms of wealth.

In <<REBIRTH>>, every job would unlock a skill every 5 levels. In Wang Yu’s skill tree there was only the skill [Lateral Kick], which had been given to him by the system.

After spending 30 silver coins, Wang Yu had learnt the level 5 skill [Crushing Blow], the Fighter’s level 10 skill [Flying Knee] and the Qigong Master’s [Rippling Wave].

His Personal Attributes were now

ID : Iron Bull (Martial Artist- Hidden)

Level : LV-14

HP: 510 (17×30)

MP: 480 (16×30)

Strength: 18

Vitality: 17

Spirit: 16

Intelligence: 16

Dexterity: 18

Physical Attack: 94-110

Magical Attack: 74-83

Physical Defense: 30-40

Magic Resistance: 28-38

Undistributed Attribute points: 91

Equipment:

<Marital Artist’s Regret (Fist Weapon) (Silver) (Broken) (Repairable)>

Physical Attack: 40-40

Magical Attack: 40-40

Effects:

[Haste] – Attack speed is increased by 20%

[Spread] – 10% of physical damage dealt to the target will hit the monsters surrounding it, up to a maximum of 60% of the original attack.

Special ability:

[Swallow] – This equipment can merge with other equipments of the same time, to repair itself and advance its grade.

Level Requirement: 1

<Old Cloth Clothing>

Physical Defense: 1-1

<Wolf King’s Fortune (Necklace) (Gold)>

Physical attack 31-42

Magic attack 15-19

[Concentration]: Heals a fixed amount of MP every 3 seconds

[Recovery]: Recover 1% of max HP every 3 seconds

Additional Skill:

-[Full Moon Charge]: Summon seven Wolf Kings to lunge at an enemy simultaneously. Each wolf King does damage equal to user’s Strength*3. 6 hours cooldown.

Level requirement: 10

<Wolf King’s Shadow (Shoes) (Silver)>

Physical defense 22-29

Magic resistance 10-13

Increases movement speed by 10%

[Haste]: Increases attack speed by 10%

[Ghost]: Increases movement speed by 200% for 3 seconds, 180 second cooldown.

Level requirement: 10

Skills:

[Lateral Kick] (LV2). The Pugilist’s strong leg muscles allows the user to deal 120% Physical Damage to the target, knocking it up and stunning it. Costs MP30.

[Crushing Blow] (LV 2) The Pugilist uses his inner strength to attack the enemy, allowing the user to deal 125% damage to the target and stunning it. Costs MP30.

[Flying Knee] (LV1) The Fighter rushes towards to his target and uses his knee to deal a ferocious attack to his target, dealing 150% Physical Damage, momentarily stunning the target. Costs MP50.

[Ripping Wave] (LV1) The Qigong master uses his inner strength to launch an attack towards his target, dealing 160% Magic Damage. Costs MP50.

After changing jobs, all the attribute points previously distributed had been reset. While an average level 14 player would have 65 attribute points at his disposal, because of his Hidden job, Wang Yu had 91 attribute points to spend.

Based on the formula of 3 Strength, 2 Dexterity and 2 Intelligence, Wang Yu distributed all the attribute points he had.

This allowed Wang Yu’s Physical Attack to rise to 144 while his Magic attack rose to 111. It was unlikely that there were any other players in the game within the same level range that could match up to the attributes that Wang Yu had.

When he had finished changing his job, Wang Yu looked at the quest log, only to realise that there was currently no follow up quest for “Brave Heart”. The next part of the quest line would only be revealed when Wang Yu had reached level 15 and looked for the Informant again.

What Wang Yu had to do now was to focus on training and to raise himself to level 15.

After reaching level 15, not only would Wang Yu be able to do this quest, he would also be able to hunt for dungeon instances. According to the official website, players could find many rare items and generous amounts of experience points in dungeon instances. But till this very day, Wang Yu still did not understand what exactly a dungeon instance was. With regards with games, Wang Yu was still just a pathetic noob.

At this moment, there were more and more players arriving in Twilight City. Many of them could be seen walking around the main street, looking for shops that sold healing items and skills.

Wang Yu opened his map to confirm the location he was headed for, subsequently running out of the city without the slightest bit of hesitation.

The Secret Jungle outside Twilight City was filled with level 10 Petty Thieves and level 12 Vagrants, humanoid monsters.

While their defence and health were not particularly high, they had surprisingly high Physical Damage and special skills, making them extremely difficult to deal with. Most players had formed parties and managed to deal with these monsters with some difficulties. While they were hard to fight, these monsters had a decent drop rate for silver coins and could be considered a good way to earn money in the early stage of the game.

Wang Yu was neither lacking in money, nor did he care for such meagre amounts of experience points, thus he headed straight into the depths of the Secret Jungle. The further he went into the forest, the higher level the monsters were.

The monsters deep in the Secret Jungle were level 15 Goblins.

Wang Yu had no interest in facing these monsters that were both small in stature and ugly. But just as he was about to head further into the forest, he heard some players shouting in the distance.

From the shouting in the distance, Wang Yu was able to discern that they were female players.

Wang Yu hesitated for a moment before walking in the direction of the sound, only to see five goblins pursuing three girls in an empty patch of land.

These five goblins were completely different from the average goblin.

Normal Goblins had pale green skin and were extremely ugly.

As for these five goblins, two had red skin, two had blue skin and the one with the biggest head had ash-grey skin.

<Goblin Chieftain (LV15) (Bronze) (Boss)>

HP: 5000

MP: 2000

Skills: [Thunder’s Call], [Hurl]

<Frost Goblin (LV15) (Elite)>

HP: 3000

MP: 1000

Skills: [Ice Arrow], [Field of Ice]

<Scorching Goblin (LV15) (Elite)>

HP: 3000

MP: 1000

Skills: [Fire Arrow], [Burning Field]

The five Goblins viciously growled as they chased, the three girls ran with all their might, occasionally turning back to sneak a glance at their pursuers, it was truly an intense scene.

Amongst the Goblin pack, the Frost Goblin’s [Ice Arrow] skill had the added effect of causing its target to be slowed, it appeared that the three girls would soon be caught by the Goblins.

Wang Yu silently dashed out, landing a flying kick on the Frost Goblin’s face, knocking it up. Wang Yu then stretched out his hand and grabbed it by the neck, repeatedly slamming it in the chest with [Crushing Blow].

-864

-1036

-1210

-100

Four blood red numbers popped up above the Frost Goblin’s head as it turned into a ray of white light.

When [Crushing Blow] exceeded 160% Perfection, it would have the added effect of penetrating the target. The other Frost Goblin that was standing nearby had lost half it health without receiving a single hit from Wang Yu!

Because of the [Spread] effect from his Fist Weapons, all the other Goblins had also received some damage from Wang Yu’s previous attacks.

Due to his insane damage output, Wang Yu had instantly drawn the aggression of all the Goblins towards himself.

The four remaining Goblins roared as they unleashed their skills towards Wang Yu.

But how could something as simplistic as the fixed trajectory of the Goblin’s skills possible hit Wang Yu? Wang Yu took a step forward, twisting his body as he dodged all four skills, grabbing the half dead Frost Goblin that was standing the closest to him, violently slamming it onto the ground.

Wang Yu leapt into the air, “Duang! Duang! Duang!” Viciously stomping three times on the Frost Goblin’s head. The Frost Goblin let out an anguished cry, turning into another ray of white light.

Now that the Frost Goblins were dead, Wang Yu turned his attention to the two Scorching Goblins, rushing towards them and effortlessly turning them into more experience points for himself.

After seeing that all its underlings had perished at the hands of Wang Yu, the Goblin Chieftain angrily roared, using [Thunder’s Call] to summon a bolt of lightning to strike Wang Yu. Wang Yu hurriedly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack from the Goblin Chieftain.

Without waiting for the Goblin Chieftain to recover from using its skill, Wang Yu had already arrived in front of it. Just as the Goblin Chieftain was about to use another skill, Wang Yu had already launched his own attack.

[Flying Knee]!!

[Lateral Kick]!

[Crushing Blow]!

…

After receiving one round of attacks from Wang Yu, the Goblin Chieftain was pitifully lying on the ground with only a sliver of health left.

Wang Yu did not even give it a second glance, cruelly stretching out his right hand, pressing it onto the Goblin Chieftain’s face.

[Rippling Wave]!!

“Peng!!!”

The Goblin Chieftain turned into a ray of white light, leaving behind a bunch of items.