4 Shadow Wolves

"Ray of Hope"

Avery finished off a shadow rabbit and looked at her Exp.

[Congrats! Defeated {Shadow Rabbit}! Received 16 Exp. 507/500 needed to level up]

[Level Up! Gained 10 stat points. 7/1000 needed to level up]

"Finally" Avery said, looking at the notifications, she felt very accomplished. She allocated her stat points before checking her shorter status.

[Status:

Name: Avrix

Level: 3

Stats:

-Charisma: 3

-Constitution: 1

-Defence: 1

-Dexterity: 1

-Intelligence: 26 (25)

-Luck: 4

-Strength: 1

-Willpower: 6

-Wisdom: 17

Elements:

-Fire

-Water

-Nature

-Wind

-Earth

-Lightning

-Metal

-Ice

-Light

-Darkness

Items:

-Starter Mage's Staff (Grade D)

+1 intelligence

-Starter Mage's Staff (Grade D)

+1 magic defence

Active Quests:

Elemental Skills:

[Fireball (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Water Shield (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Entangle (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Flying Cloud (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Rock Wall (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Lightning Strike(Tier 1, Level 0)

[Metal Guard (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Frost (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Ray of Hope (Tier 1, Level 0)

[Smog (Tier 1, Level 0)

Other Skills:

Health: 1100

Mana: 360 (350)

Defence: 10

Magic defence: 61 (60)

Health regeneration: 1.5 per second

Mana regeneration: 9.5 per second]

'My stuff is looking good' she thought while looking at her status. She spent 2 hours grinding to get to level 3. Other players are probably still at level 2, and maybe some players are lucky enough to get to level 2. But, Avery is confident that she's the only level 3 player. No one could level up as fast as her.

Looking at her stats, she considers whether she should go in deeper and fight higher level monsters. She increased her mana and mana regeneration, so she could use more spells at a faster pace. It gave her a bit of confidence, so she decided to give it a go.

Heading through Shadow Valley, she felt that it was getting a it darker. She felt that something was watching her, but she couldn't tell. "Shit!" she cursed as she realized what was going on. She moved out of the way in the nick of time just as a wolf pounced on her previous location. Seeing it, she involuntarily shivered.

[Shadow Wolf (Level 7)

A wolf infused with the abundant darkness elements in Shadow Valley, gaining an increased strength

Health: 5000

Mana: 175

Defence: 250

Magic defence: 200

Abilities: {Shadow Steps}, {Shadow Spear}

{Shadow Spear (Tier 3)}: Creates a spear out of shadows and hurls it at an enemy. Deals 650 damage and has a 25% chance to ignore defence/magic defence]

'Almost forgot about these...' She thought, blaming her ignorance. She was focused on so many other things and still a teensy bit shaken about her rebirth that she totally forgot about the shadow wolves. It gave many people nightmares back in her world. It was so fast that even Avery couldn't hit it's weak spots, so Avery can only use "Ray of Hope" to deal damage. If he didn't have all elements, well, she'd be screwed.

"Ray of Hope"

She immediately casted "Ray of Hope" before making a mad dash away from the shadow wolf. The shadow wolf managed to avoid a direct on it's weak spots, but still got hit.

[Hit! Dealt 550 damage to {Shadow Wolf}. 4450/5000]

Hit by the light, the shadow wolf howled in pain for 5 seconds before the attack wore off. It recovered after a second because it's stronger that the shadow rabbits she fought before.

The shadow wolf use {Shadow Steps} and blended into the shadows before it started running at her. It didn't really matter if it used {Shadow Steps} or not, because "Ray of Hope" was the only spell she could use to deal damage.

The shadow wolf was right behind Avery in a couple of seconds. She couldn't do anything because close combat was the bane for every mage, bard and shaman.

Mages, bards and shamans are the 3 most helpful classes. Mages deal massive damage, bards can give insane damage boosts to teammates and shamans can make fights much easier with their de-buffs.

The only problem is that they suck in close combat.

Mages, bards and shamans don't have a default attack, unlike the other classes that do. So, mana and skills are crucial to them. Whenever there's a life saving skill book for one of those classes, the price goes unbelievably high. Worse ones can go for 100 gold, while the better ones can go for up to 10 000 gold.

One copper would be equal to one cent, one silver is equal to one dollar and one gold is equal to a hundred dollars. So, the prices of one life saving skill could be up to a million dollars. That shows how valuable they are.

Currently, gold is hard to come by in the game. The money to currency exchange feature only comes out a year after the release, but you can trade currency for money at the trade centre.

Either way, mages, bards and shamans are very weak when it comes to close combat.

That means Avery is in a bad situation.

[Received 266 damage from {Shadow Wolf} 834/1100]

The shadow wolf scratched Avery and she stumbled, but still managed to continue running. If she stopped, the shadow wolf would be able to bite her, dealing even more damage.

When you get attacked you get dealt damage. If it's a stronger attack or a heavy attack, like the shadow rabbits bite from earlier, it deals double damage. That's why the shadow rabbit's bite was stronger than the shadow wolf's scratch. If the shadow wolf bit her, than it would've dealt double damage, which she wants to avoid.

She could only run. If she used "Rock Wall" or "Metal Guard", the shadow wolf charging into it would be considered a heavy attack and immediately destroy it. If she casted "Frost", well, the shadow wolf used {Shadow Steps} so she would have to cast "Ray of Hope" beforehand to cancel it. Even so, the shadow wolf is fast enough to dodge "Frost", so it wouldn't work. She could cast "Water Shield", but 75 extra defence isn't too much. But, it's better than nothing, so...

"Water Shield!"

Avery casted "Water Shield" while running and a floating shield made of water started hovering around her. It wouldn't do much, but it's the best she has right now. She did have a plan, but it's going to be hard.

Back in her world, people found out an exploit where there's a small crack in the wall, and if you go in it, shadow wolves cannot reach you because they're too big and the crack is too small. It would only work for shadow wolves because shadow rabbits were small enough to go in. The only flaw to the exploit is that you have to be very fast so that you can make it there before the shadow wolf kills you.

And Avery isn't that fast.

[Received 202 (257-75) damage from {Shadow Wolf} 652/1100]

"Come on!" She said, running as fast as she could. The water shield helped her a little bit, but she still got hit hard. Looking behind her, she checked how far the shadow wolf was, and was greeted by a giant shadow spear heading straight at her.

[Received 650 (Pierced) damage from {Shadow Wolf} 2/1100]

The spear went straight into her stomach and launched her forward around 20 meters. 'Are you kidding me right now' She thought. She could die by just a scratch from the wolf right now. All she could do is keep on running.

The shadow wolf, sensing that she's weak, slowed down a bit to enjoy the thrill of the hunt. Avery used that time to cast "Ray of Hope" once more when it went off cooldown.

"Ray of Hope"

The shadow wolf was enjoying chasing her and didn't notice the ray of light before it was too late. Hit by the light, it once again howled in pain and rolled over the ground for 5 seconds before the spell wore off and it got back up, with a trace of bloodlust in it's eyes.

[Direct hit! Dealt 750 damage to {Monster} 3700/5000]

Avery kept on running, ignoring the in front of her. She didn't have enough time to think about it because she can see the small crack up ahead. She makes a sprint for it, barely missing the shadow wolf's scratch from behind.

"Finally" she signed. She almost died running away. The shadow wolf was clawing at the crack, but unable to get in or hit her. It started preparing a {Shadow Spear}, but stopped when Avery went in deeper and turned around a corner, thus making it impossible for the {Shadow Spear} to hit.

Avery stayed in the crack for 5 minutes, spamming "Ray of Hope" when ever it went off cooldown. The shadow wolf stayed in front of the crack, unwilling to leave until she came out.

The monsters had a weird aggro system in the game. Pretty much whoever generated the most aggro by attacking, healing or using skills, would be targeted until the monster dies or the player dies. That way, you have to finish a fight or run all the way into a safe zone like a city or village. It's a unique battle system that gets rid of unfinished fights.

After killing it, the shadow wolf howled one last time before falling t the ground and disappearing. In it's place was a shiny black orb. Avery was a bit shocked. She knew exactly what it was, but didn't expect it to appear so fast.

[Congrats! Defeated {Shadow Wolf}! Received 34 Exp. 41/1000 needed to level up]

[The {Shadow Wolf} dropped a {Darkness Orb}]

[Darkness Orb: levels up an elemental skill of the darkness element. The amount of orbs needed equal to the skill tier]

An elemental orb. A goddamn elemental orb. These things are rare. One in every thousand elemental monsters have one. And the prices are quite high. One would cost a gold piece. That's a hundred dollars for one orb. So, if you grind elemental monsters, you can slowly make a fortune.

The only problem is that one major guilds realized this, they immediately sent out forces to conquer all the areas elemental monsters spawned. They were made so well known that they were dubbed "Elemental Areas".

Either way, Avery didn't care about money right now, because she had a money-making plan that'll make her rich.

Avery used the darkness orb on her "Smog and it levelled up, gaining more power.

[Smog (Tier 1, Level 1)

Creates a smog that covers a 5*5 area, dealing 20 damage per second to whoever's in it. Disappears after 11 seconds. Cannot be stacked.

Costs: 75 mana

Cooldown: 1 minute

Note: This is where all the toxic tryhards live]

The damage doubled and the duration was extended by a second. It didn't get a massive increase of power, but was 100% better. Plus, there was no point saving it because it would take a while to get the next tier of spells.

Skill tiers represent how powerful by default a skill is, and how many elemental orbs are required to level it up. For example, if there was a skill that was tier 6, you'd need 6 elemental orbs of that element to level it up.

The level of a skill can go up to 100, so tier 1 skills can possibly be more powerful than a tier 10 skill.

Anyways, Avery was content with what she got, and she decided to stop grinding for a while and go complete some regular quests. Usually, quests give you a decent amount of Exp and some currency. The most important part is the currency, because you don't get money from monsters, so quests were the main way to get money.

Items are important too. You either buy items from shops or the auction house, get them from dungeons/bosses or finding treasure chests.

Treasures chests are hard to come by because the loot from them are amazing. Apparently, you can get some sweet stuff, but they were extremely hard to come by. Plus, no one posted that they found a treasure chest on the forums unless they wanted to get hunted down by PKers (Player-Killers) wanting the stuff they got. So Avery couldn't go to every single treasure chest location and get overpowered items easily.

Speaking of treasure chests, Avery noticed a glimmer of light from deeper in the crack she was in...