The paw landed on Colt’s shield, doing no damage but opening him up for the wolf’s next attack. As Colt tried to recover his balance, the wolf charged at him striking his body on the way past.

[Divine Power Damage Check… Enemy Speed 5. Endurance of area struck 4. Your Divine Power is Inferior. -2 HP]

Colt groaned as he finally regained his balance and turned to face the wolf, who seemed to be mocking him with its gaze. ‘Ok, looks like the mobs are pretty intelligent. I can’t take them lightly.’ Colt’s eyes narrowed as he began to think of how to maximise his damage output with each exchange.

Colt braced himself and began to edge towards the beast, which caught it unawares. The wolf sniffed at the air as if trying to sense what he was up to but to no avail. The closer that Colt got to it, the louder it growled. Colt could even smell the stretch of raw meat on its breath as he reached a distance that would allow him to launch an attack.

Colt leapt forward suddenly and smashed the wolf’s snout with his shield, causing it to lower its head slightly. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Colt delivered a blow towards the wolf’s eye with his axe!

[You have dealt -3 HP]

[Divine Power Damage Check… Your Strength 2. Enemy Endurance of area struck 1. You have dealt -2 HP]

Colt grinned as the information was fed into his mind. He had estimated the wolf to have 12/15 HP after the first time he had damaged it. So now it should only have 7/15 HP left. He was especially pleased to see that his guess about mobs having weak spots was correct as well. Which led him to attack the wolf’s eye.

‘So fur, scales, and the like probably have the highest Endurance rating on a mob. As if it were their armour. The key to a good DPS will be discovering their weak points and exploiting them.’ Colt nodded. This might sound like common sense, but very few games actually implemented it. So no matter where you hit the mobs, you would do the same damage. It was only if the mobs had a weakness to a specific type of damage that you could increase your DPS in most games.

Colt felt much more positive after confirming that. The beast attempted to raise its head to snarl at Colt, but he delivered another shield bash to its snout, which seemed to stun it.

[You have dealt -3 HP]

Colt grinned savagely and swiftly delivered two more blows to the wolf with his shield keeping it in a stun lock in the process. The wolf died rather pitifully under that abuse. Its enormous body fell to the ground before disappearing in motes of light.

[New Milestone Unlocked]

[Wolf Slayer: 1/10]

‘Hmm? A new milestone?’ Colt pondered for a moment, then had a thought. ‘When my follower count met new milestones, I received a stat point! So is this how we’re supposed to level up then?’ Colt felt that there was a good chance that he was right. Meaning that players would have to explore and find new ways to level up. After all, these Milestones most likely had caps to them.

Colt thought it was a rather clever idea. It would stop higher levelled players grinding in the more accessible areas for levels. Meaning that the lower levels would not have to compete for scraps. His attention was soon dragged away from these thoughts by two soft lights that briefly appeared in the snow.

Colt grinned as two items lay on the snow in its place. One looked like a piece of folded up fur, and the other looked like one of the wolf’s fangs. Before he moved to retrieve them, he warily eyed the remaining five wolves who watched him lazily. ‘Seems like I’m still safe.’ Colt thought as he cocked an eyebrow. Colt touched the wolf fang first, and a notification popped up.

[Item: Wolf Fang]

[Type: Common]

[Base Strength Requirement to Collect: 1]

The wolf fang disappeared into Colt’s inventory as he read through the information. However, he was now troubled by the piece of information that there were limits set on collecting his loot! Colt quickly checked his stat page and sighed dejectedly.

[Name: Exile]

[Title: God of the Hearth]

[Race: Local Deity (Human)]

[Tier: 0]

[Level: 2]

[HP: 22/25]

[DP: 3/3]

[Strength: 1 (+1)]

[Endurance: 3 (+2)]

[Speed: 3]

[Authority: 3]

His base Strength was only valued at 1. Which meant he would have a hard time collecting any decent materials he came across. ‘Luckily, I’m still in what seems to be a low-level area.’ Colt moved his hand over the fur to collect it as well.

[Item: Wolf Fur]

[Type: Common]

[Base Strength Requirement to Collect: 3]

Colt cursed loudly when he saw he did not meet the requirements to collect this item. He had a feeling that these items gained from the wolf could possibly be used as crafting materials. When Colt exited the information of the Wolf Fur without collecting it, the object disappeared. As though it understood that nobody could collect it.

‘I guess I need to start putting some points into Strength.’ Colt eyed the other wolves again and smiled. At least there’s plenty of wolves, and nobody else is here yet. Colt started to walk towards the other five nearby with a broad grin on his face. However, as he got closer, all five of them lifted their heads and snarled at him.

‘Ok, so these ones will probably fight together. With their Speed, I won’t be able to outrun them if things start to look bad. I should pick out the ones who have been isolated frothier packs.’ Colt’s gaze swept the snow-covered hills and spotted several that fit the bill. However, he would have to carefully avoid a few packs that were close together.

‘I guess it’s time to start grinding then….’