GENESYS

EIGHT

After meeting the village chief. Leon takes a tour around the village and as he expected the whole village treated him like a criminal. Not a single one wants to give him a quest, they even refuse to sell him basic potions.

With no way to get a quest, Leon has no other choice but to grind monsters. 

Although he was unfamiliar with the place, it was not difficult for him to procure a map. Within a couple of minutes on the internet, he gathered the information he needed. In today’s day and age, there's always someone bored enough to post all sorts of information to get attention.

According to the information he gathers, the village of Ganiyu is situated at the top of the Mt.Seranide and it was first discovered by a player named Explorefreek, the latter also posted a detailed map including what monsters can be found in the area. 

‘That attention-seeking i***t ultimately does it ah.’ Leon thought to himself as he remembered the past.

Before he worked for Camelot, he frequently hunted in the bottom of Mt.Seranide as it was one of the few discovered places perfect for a level 100 to grind. The whole place is filled with Level 125 cyclops and ogres who gave a decent amount of experience. The higher one climbs the stronger the monster becomes. There was even a rumor that at the top of the mountain there’s a dragon nest filled with a treasure which made the whole mountain extremely popular.

The rumor sparked fierce competition among the high rankers and Explorefreek is among one of the best front-runners for the Dragons' treasures. Like him, the latter is resourceful and has plenty of experience in raiding and exploring dangerous dungeons. 

Although he ultimately gave up the climb and chose to work for the rich Prince Arthur, Leon always remained attentive to what’s happening at Mt. Serenade. In his two years of service up to the day of his retirement, Mt. Seranide remained unconquered. He once heard from Merlin that there is in fact a dragon nest there but the place is not empty. It was the home of a young dragon although it is still young, a dragon is still a dragon. A bunch of level 100 -150 players have no hope of slaying it. 

When he heard about that, he immediately lost interest in Mt. Seranide. He didn’t expect that after his one-year hiatus that place would be conquered. The information on the internet didn’t mention any dragon, Leon didn't believe that Merlin would lie, this only leaves one possibility: the information is concealed. 

‘That lucky bastard!’

While laminating about the past, Leon arrives at the rocky forest, although the place is called a forest there are no trees there, only rocks, lots and lots of rock. 

There are no players grinding levels in the area and it was mainly because there's only one kind of monster living there. The monsters look no different than ordinary rocks except for the coin size blue circle that can be found in the monster's body.

[Rock slime] - A variant of the slime family. Rock slime can be found in all sorts of rocky places. It inherits the slime family resistance to physical attack but unlike its counterpart, a rock slime has a solid body made entirely of rocks. 

It’s a typical monster that's very difficult to hunt and drops absolutely nothing except for combustion rocks that's only good at lighting campfires. It works no differently from a firecracker in the real world.

Leon looked at the monster and thought ‘It could work.’

Checking his inventory he realized that the stupid fairy didn't provide him with a wooden sword, he had no choice now but to pick a random rock lying on the ground and use that. "Well, I guess this will do.”  

Although normal players might find it difficult to deal with slime without using magic. Leon was not like any player. He once was a high-ranking player and has experience dealing with all sorts of monsters. 

Putting all his stats to dexterity, Leon slowly approaches the rock slime. Newbie players usually put their stats on strength, agility, or intelligence depending on the class they're going to pick and completely ignore dexterity as it was a common misconception among players that dexterity is only useful for production classes. 

Until the day he quits Genesys, there are only a few high-ranking players who know the importance of dexterity.

Dexterity is a stat that lets players control their bodies better. A very important stat in production who needed delicate hand movement but was equally important in combat as Genesys copy the real world to such an extent. All living beings are given weakness, if players manage to strike it the attack will be sure critical. 

In particular, a rock slime has one fatal weakness, if you manage to break its core the rock slime will immediately die. However, hitting it will require precise precision as it has the ability to move its core at will.

Leon manages to sneak up to a rock slime without alerting it, spotting the core he smashed his rock through it. 

"Bang" His attack landed on the rock slime core but his aim was a little off and he wasn't able to completely break it. His sneak attack failed. 

"Damn curse! My body is so sluggish," The rock slime notices Leon and retaliates. It tackles him with the speed of a slow pitch baseball. 

Leon sees the attack coming and tries to dodge but his body is so slow that the rock slime still manages to graze him. A simple attack from a rock slime manages to take out half of his HP. 

‘This new stat will take some time getting used to.'

He was lucky that the monster he was facing now is a rock slime who can only use one simple attack, tackle. If it was any other monster, he would already be dead even a normal slime has a variety of attacks, it can use its jelly body to wrap around the players' head slowly killing them or melt them with acid. 

Leon's poor performance cannot be blamed solely with his curse. As even without it, his stats are still trash. He was level 150 before and compared to him now is like comparing heaven from earth. 

After recovering, Leon once again approaches the rock slime. Already alert of his presence, the rock slime prepares to attack again. 

Learning from his previous mistake, Leon anticipated the rock slime attack trajectory and moved to the side before the rock slime could even move, successfully dodging the attack. 

With the split-second opening, Leon once again smashed his rock at the rock slime core, breaking it. Finally successfully killing the rock slime.

"Critical!" 

Without its core, the rock slime falls to the ground as a pile of rubles

'100 more to go to level up,' Leon thought looking at his experience bar.

Leveling up only by grinding takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. That's why developers created Quest to lessen the monotonous stress of grinding but this option is closed to Leon because of his super helpful title [Enemy of the World].

Stressed by this, Leon's mind can help but wonder about the group of buffoons he tricked.‘As of now, they must have been gathering their buffoon's forces to slay a guard. Damn! Village Chief, just you wait'

He actually didn't lie to those guys. Once a certain group of players gathers and murders a guard the system will recognize it as an act of conquest and a Conquest quest will be issued. If the players successfully kill the Village chief during this time they will really be rewarded the village. The only problem is that the task is deemed impossible.

‘I need to finish my preparation fast.’ Leon then walked to the next rock slime smashing its core.

“99 more to go”

……..

"Critical!" Another rock slime falls and turns into rambles. 

“That’s 500”

"Finally I reached level three" As Leon continued to kill rock slime, he became more and more familiar with his current stats and this resulted in him killing rock slime faster. 

"This monster is really frugal. It didn't even drop a single copper coin despite me killing more than 500 of them" After slaughtering a whole colony of the rock slime, his inventory is now filled with nothing but worthless rocks. 

If the village chief did his job properly and gave him a quest this rock might be exchanged for experience and items but now Leon is left with no choice but to use it for other means. 

"The buffoons must have finished gathering by now, I need to get me some weapons." Dropping the rock in his hand. Leon leaves the rocky forest and goes to a new area. 

After some time, Leon finally arrives at his next destination: Serene Cany. 

Unlike the rocky forest, Serene Cany is filled with Newbie players and home for various types of monsters such as.

[Grey hyena] - The outcast of the cat clan. Can be found in mountain areas. The Grey Hyena is covered entirely in stone skins giving it its iconic grey color. Grey hyena unlike the other monsters of the cat clan is inherently slow. It makes up for its lack of speed with its amazing strength and defense.  

[Grey Goblin] - Part of the goblin clan. Can be found in mountain areas. Unlike its fellow clansmen, the grey goblin is fat and has a distinct color grey. But don’t be fooled by its appearance as the grey goblin is fast and agile, a trait common for the goblin race.

Leon spotted a well-balanced party of players facing off and a group of grey goblins. 

‘That’s pretty good equipment, It’s time to go shopping’ Leon thought with a sinister smile.