Chapter 4: The Miracle Unfolds

  "Ding!"

  A clear and melodious sound marked the official launch of the server. Zhang Yang felt a brief dizziness, and when his vision cleared, he found himself standing in the middle of an ancient village square.

  In this brief moment, one after another player was refreshed by the system beside Zhang Yang, and instantly filled the entire square! Due to the sheer number of people, those who were refreshed first were actually squeezed to one side by the players refreshed later!

  This is the world's first virtual imaging online game. Every player who enters the game is shocked to see the incredibly realistic environment around them, and for a moment, they forget about action.

  "I'm going to play it, this game is indeed just like the real one!"

  "Damn it, don't block me, let me out!"

  "What's the hurry, trying to reincarnate?"

  "Damn it, where are you putting your hands? Is my cheapness something that can be taken advantage of at will?"

  "I'm telling you, auntie, with a face like yours, even if you were given away for free, brothers would still be scared off!"

  "Then why did you put your hand on my mother's chest and not take it off?"

  "Hey, it's crowded, too crowded, there's no place to put my hands!"

  "I'm out of here, can't stand you two adulterers, going back to masturbate!"

  “……”

  After a long time, the players finally came back to their senses. You said one word and I said another, and suddenly it was chaotic. Experienced old birds or players who had read the game introduction quickly looked for NPCs to receive tasks, while more people rushed out of the village in a swarm, killing monsters and leveling up in a grand army like locusts, usually just as a monster spawned, it would be attacked by over ten players at the same time, tragically falling to the ground and dying, turning into a pile of experience.

  It took more than ten minutes for the players who had just spawned at the birth point to slow down, stabilizing at a rate of one player per minute. From the hot sales of game helmets, the Dream Group knew that there would be a huge number of gamers pouring into the server when it opened! Therefore, the novice village was also expanded in the form of an instance, with tens of thousands of instances added to divert players and avoid situations where players had no monsters to fight. There were approximately 5,000 players in each novice village instance.

  Zhang Yang had already left the birth point at the first possible moment. As a reborn player, he naturally wouldn't be able to do tasks in a step-by-step manner like other players. He had planned out his leveling route before even entering the game.

  While rushing towards the village entrance, Zhang Yang opened his skill list to check the skills he currently possessed.

  Shield Warrior is born with two skills: Charge and Power Strike.

  Rush: Rush towards the target at high speed, causing the target to become dazed for 2 seconds and generating 10 rage points. Cooldown time: 30 seconds.

  【Power Strike】 (Level 1): Immediately deal a powerful strike to the target, dealing 100% melee damage and with a 5% chance to trigger an additional attack. Consumption: 30 rage. Cooldown time: 1 second. Requires: Melee weapon.

  The skills that display levels can be upgraded with skill points, up to a maximum of 10 levels. For example, after the strong strike point is full, the probability of triggering an extra attack can reach 50%! However, players can only get one skill point for every 10 levels they upgrade, and even if they reach the game's level cap of 300, they will only have 30 skill points, which are extremely precious and rare. However, skill points can also be obtained through certain mainline or hidden tasks, and the big BOSS in the wild has a certain probability of dropping skill points, but the difficulty of obtaining them is extremely high!

  ……

  "Those damned wolves, they killed three villagers again today! Is there a hero who can help us get rid of these cruel beasts?" The white-bearded old village chief paced back and forth anxiously, if not for the title "Village Chief Old Huan" on his head and a yellow exclamation mark, anyone would have thought he was a real person!

  The yellow exclamation mark indicates that this NPC will offer a quest to players.

  Extremely high fidelity! This is one of the most charming aspects of the game, but also a place where it was later criticized - because it's too realistic, some players even started doing erotic business in the game, to the point where the game company specifically made a patch to prohibit players from taking off **!

  It's amusing that several countries actually asked Dream Technology to cancel this setting for players in their country, because these countries think that allowing such pornographic transactions in the virtual world will greatly reduce ugly phenomena in real society!

  It's not just that, after Dream Technology made a change, the prostitution and rape cases in these countries have decreased significantly, and the crime rate has also dropped a lot. It's really amazing, to the point where many other countries are asking Dream Technology to cancel the game patch for players in their country.

  And so, the bored players also selected the "top ten famous prostitutes" in the world's eight major regions. Of course, some innocent female players were also unfortunately implicated, such as "Wu Mei Qian Jiao", who was ranked third in China. In reality, she is the only daughter of the chairman of Tian Nan Pharmaceutical, with a family fortune of hundreds of millions. How could she possibly be involved in prostitution? It's just that some people intentionally slandered her, and the ignorant masses spread rumors, eventually turning white into black!

  Of course, this is all beside the point.

  Zhang Yang stepped forward and said: "Respected Village Chief, I am willing to serve you!"

  The old village chief was overjoyed and said: "Brave young man, your kindness will surely be blessed by the gods!"

  "Ding! You have accepted the mission: Clear out the wild wolves!"

  Turning over the task log, Zhang Yang took a look at the task description.

  Eliminate Wild Wolves (Mission Difficulty: D-Rank)

  Task Description: You have accepted the old village chief's request to go to the west of the village and kill 20 wild wolves, defending the village's safety!

  Completion: Kill wild wolves 0/20

  In "Miracle", the task difficulty is divided into five levels from high to low: S, A, B, C, and D. This difficulty is determined by two points: First, the level difference between the player and the monster; Second, the strength of the monster itself. For example, Zhang Yang's task, because the wild wolf to be killed is only level 1, the system determines that this task is extremely easy for Zhang Yang, so the difficulty is displayed as D-level.

  After receiving the task, Zhang Yang ran to the nearby blacksmith shop again and learned casting techniques from the iron master and mining techniques from the miner. A pickaxe suddenly appeared in his backpack.

  Then Zhang Yang immediately rushed towards the west of the village and arrived at the western wilderness where the wild wolves gathered.

  Several dozen wild wolves roamed around the desolate land, occasionally letting out a mournful howl towards the sky, their voices shrill and frightening.

  Zhang Yang drew out his new sword and charged at a wild wolf, striking it down with one blow. Although his attack power was not high at this time, the wolf's health points were also limited, and he could probably kill one wolf in seven or eight strikes.

  In just a few minutes, twenty wild wolves had died at Zhang Yang's hands. A flash of golden light appeared on his body as he leveled up to level 2, with all attributes increasing slightly and gaining five free attribute points.

  Zhang Yang casually distributed the free attribute points in a 4:1 ratio of strength to agility, and then continued to slaughter the wild wolves until he had collected 10 wolf hides. Only then did he stop with satisfaction. At this time, the newbie army also arrived, occupying the western wilderness in large numbers.

  Zhang Yang did not linger here to fight a protracted war. In an all-out war, the most feared thing is that there are too many strange people, so he immediately decided to leave.

  However, before that, Zhang Yang first turned around the nearby area. Luckily, he found an iron ore and took out a pickaxe to start digging ding-ding-ding.

  "Ding! You used mining on an iron ore vein. You picked up 3 iron ores. Your mining skill has increased by 1 point!"

  Zhang Yang put the iron ore into his backpack, turned around and left the western wilderness, returned to the old village chief, handed over the "Clearing Wild Wolves" task, and obtained a pair of white-quality boots and 3000 experience points.

  The old village chief still frowned, Zhang Yang continued to talk to him and received the task of "haunted cemetery".

  Haunted Mausoleum (Mission Difficulty: C-Rank)

  Task Description: Recently, strange events have occurred in the cemetery east of the village. Every night, eerie sounds are heard! Go and investigate what's happening!

  Completion: Found the reason for the haunting 0/1

  The difficulty of the task has increased, Zhang Yang knew that it was because he would encounter 4th-level monsters, which were relatively high compared to his current level, and would be marked as C-level by the system.

  He carried his new sword, rushing straight to the eastern cemetery of Newbie Village. Row after row of tombstones stood in silence, but there was not a single monster in sight. Without monsters, it was only natural that players wouldn't be seen either. The desolate and eerie environment suddenly gave people a chilling feeling.

  Zhang Yang found a tomb, and after entering, he pressed on one of the faintly glowing iron blocks. Suddenly, a rumbling sound was heard, and a half-person-high cave entrance appeared in front of him.

  Zhang Yang lowered his body and crawled in from the entrance of the cave. Suddenly, everything before him became clear and bright.

  This is a huge underground tomb, with a passageway stretching far away, and stone chambers on both sides, where the eerie low growls can be faintly heard.

  Zhang Yang took a few steps forward, turned into the first stone room on the left, and under the faint firelight, he could see seven or eight tattered ghosts wandering around in confusion. He took another step forward, immediately entering the range of the monster closest to him, and the ghost let out a low growl, baring its teeth and pouncing on Zhang Yang.

  The Deceased Villager (Normal)

  Rank: 4

  Health: 200

  “－11！”

  Zhang Yang swung his sword up, and a white damage number flashed above the monster's head. In "Divine Sign", normal attack damage is displayed in white, skill damage is displayed in yellow, self-inflicted damage is displayed in red, and self-healing is displayed in green. If the damage or healing causes a critical hit or a lucky strike, the font will be enlarged.

  A 4th-level monster, with both its HP and armor far exceeding those of a level-1 wild wolf. Zhang Yang's sword had taken away 11 points of the undead monster's HP, but compared to its total life value of 200 points, it was truly insignificant!