After looting the spoils, Mysterious finally remembered he’d just leveled up.
Leveling up meant attribute points! It meant escaping the embarrassment of having every stat stuck at 1!
He opened his status panel. Though his five core attributes still read "1," a new "+5 Unallocated Points" glowed beside them. Dumping all five here would double his stats instantly.
Power. Invincibility.
Staring at those five points, Mysterious weighed his options.
His class choice was already settled: Warrior. In most games, Warriors relied on Strength, Agility, and Vitality—Strength boosted attack, Agility increased speed, Vitality raised HP.
Vitality was out first. Low HP didn’t matter if nothing could hit him, right?
That left Strength and Agility. Early-game, raw damage usually trumped everything—it meant faster farming. But against Level 6+ mobs, even +5 Strength wouldn’t penetrate their defenses.
Plus, Reaper’s Mercy already amplified his attack. He didn’t *need* more.
So he dumped all five points into Agility. Now only *four* stats lingered at 1.
With his reflexes, no one could land a blow if his speed held.
Post-allocation, Mysterious stretched, testing the subtle shift in his body. The +5 Agility boost was faint, but he felt it. For a player chasing perfection, every fractional change mattered.
He pressed deeper into the cave without delay, Novice Sword in hand.
En route, he skirted several Mine Rats. Instead of fighting, he dodged their lunges and slipped past. Once outside their hate range, they lost interest and scurried back.
He fled not because grinding full-health rats with his forced 1-damage ticks was tedious—but because he’d sensed other players entering the mine. Likely the same group who’d been wiped earlier. Best avoid trouble.
After a long stretch with only Mine Rats appearing, Mysterious concluded this floor held no other monsters.
Thankfully, spawn density was low. With his current Agility, pulling five rats at once would be suicide.
Still, he spared time to kill two rats, hitting Level 3 and maxing Reaper’s Mercy’s soul gauge. The extra +4 attack wouldn’t break defenses, but it was better than nothing. Attribute points? All Agility, naturally.
At last, one stat breached double digits. A small victory.
The mine twisted like a maze, but as a BeginnerVillage zone, it was deceptively simple: one straight path to the second-floor entrance.
Three Mine Rats gnawed the tunnel walls near the stairwell—mineral-eaters digging ore from stone. One rat he’d killed earlier dropped a Quality 1 Iron Ore.
These three showed no sign of leaving. Annoying. He *could* lure them away and slip past, but he refused.
Entering the mine hadn’t triggered a zone transition. If he charged downstairs, there was an 80% chance all three rats would follow him into the unknown second floor. Too risky.
Fighting them head-on was equally unwise. His Agility couldn’t guarantee victory against three. This only hardened his resolve: *All Agility. No compromises.* Not until his speed could handle real combat.
Resolve wouldn’t fix his stats, though.
"Change the situation…" Mysterious frowned, pulling Holy Light Essence from his bag.
He glanced at it, then tossed it back. Useless against non-undead. Which raised a question: Why give anti-undead gear in a non-undead quest?
The answer was obvious—it mattered later. Undead must lurk on Floor 2.
A mine full of undead wasn’t unusual… but sharing space with mundane rats felt off.
Mysterious pulled the Iron Ore he’d looted and tossed it in a smooth arc. It rolled to a stop just over six meters from the nearest rat.
Six meters was their standard detection range—he’d learned that the hard way.
But EndlessHorizon wasn’t rigid. Rats spotted movement up to eight meters away. Loud noises drew their attention too.
Mysterious retreated instantly, putting eight meters between himself and the ore.
Only the closest rat noticed the clatter. It abandoned its wall-scraping and darted toward the prize.
The AI wasn’t *that* smart. It recognized food but didn’t question why ore lay in the open.
As the rat advanced, Mysterious backed away, maintaining an eight-meter gap.
The rat reached the ore and began gnawing greedily.
*Perfect.*
Mysterious charged. Three rats? Dangerous. One? Trivial.
The rat, focused on its meal, didn’t react until he breached its six-meter hate range. It dropped the ore and lunged.
Mine Rats opened with a pounce. Close up, they’d slash with claws and teeth. Tail-whips were elite-only—he’d never seen a normal rat use one.
Mysterious danced around it, Novice Sword flashing. Grey [-1] damage numbers peppered the rat’s hide. Ignoring those, he looked every bit the pro.
Low damage, high volume. The rat’s 220 HP bled steadily—halved in seconds.
"*Squeee!*"
The wounded rat shrieked.
Mysterious’ instincts screamed *danger*.
"*Squeak-squeak-squeak!*"
The two rats at the stairwell abandoned their walls and charged.
Mysterious kicked the half-dead rat back and sprinted for the stairs.
Ten meters. His life hung by a thread. One bite, and he’d respawn at the village.
He twisted aside from Rat #2’s pounce while raising his sword to block Rat #3’s leap.
***Screeee!***
Rat #3’s teeth sank into the Novice Sword’s blade with a bone-rattling shriek.
Normal rats couldn’t damage players through blocked attacks—unlike elites.
But it didn’t let go. It *chewed*.
This was the Mine Rat’s curse: weapon destruction. Metal-eaters meant sky-high repair bills. New players would soon learn to hate them.
Except—Novice Swords had no durability. This rat’s greatest weapon was useless against Mysterious.
Rat #3 now dangled from his sword, weighing it down. With two more rats closing in, Mysterious bolted for the stairs.
Stairs slowed movement. He leapt down instead.
Rats #1 and #2 gave chase—then froze halfway down. They circled, chittering at him, but refused to descend further.
Watching the two rats’ movements, Mysterious instantly grasped their meaning—they were terrified.
Rat No. 3, which had been gnawing furiously on Mysterious’s Novice Sword, now abandoned its chewing spree. It lay silently on the ground, curled into a tight ball, not daring to move a muscle… well, if trembling didn’t count.
Seeing Rat No. 3 huddled and shivering uncontrollably, Mysterious swung his sword down without a shred of mercy.
[-1] Defense not broken.
Though still failing to pierce its defense, Mysterious had poured all his strength into this strike. The mine rat flipped over, its back slashed open to reveal a shallow wound.
But the mine rat didn’t counterattack. After righting itself, it resumed shivering, its tiny eyes brimming with fear.
Mysterious didn’t hold back. Strike after strike, he wore the rat down until it died.
Witnessing their companion’s death, Rat No. 1 and Rat No. 2 fled without looking back, as if desperate to escape a second longer.
Picking up the common bracer and a white-grade material called "Rat Tooth" dropped by the unlucky rat, Mysterious turned toward the mine’s depths… Since stepping inside, a chilling, eerie aura had clung to the air, making him deeply uneasy.
