[Welcome to Apocalypse]
As the white light faded, John entered the game.
What came into view was the scene of Novice Village.
There were already quite a few players here.
Their faces were filled with excitement, marveling at how realistic the game felt.
But John had no interest in any of that.
In order to store up System Points, he had already spent half an hour lingering on the login screen.
"Based on the timeline from my previous life, those people should still be grinding monsters around now."
John opened his game panel.
[Player]: John
[Level]: 1
[Class]: Assassin
[Attributes]: Strength 10, Agility 20, Mind 15, Stamina 10
[Skills]: None
[Equipment]: Novice Dagger, Novice Robe
[Copper Coins]: 0
…
Apocalypse was an extremely realistic game.
If you wanted to obtain copper coins, the only way was by killing monsters.
"First, I should spend these System Points."
With his current stats alone, there was absolutely no way he could grind monsters solo.
After thinking for a moment, John chose to directly raise the attack power of his plain starter dagger from its base value of 5 all the way to 1000!
In the early game, whether it was monsters or players, HP generally did not exceed 1000.
Now that the dagger had been boosted, it could instantly one-shot almost anything.
As for the remaining 800 points, he naturally put them into his cloth robe.
After assigning the points,
although John was still only Level 1, the stat boosts from his equipment had already made him no different from a Level 10 player!
Unless he encountered an enemy with true-damage skills,
he could practically play superhero inside Novice Village now.
"So this is the joy of allocating points?"
Gripping the dagger tightly in his hand, ambition burned like fire in John's heart.
At that moment,
a message icon popped up in the chat box.
[Sein]: "Why are you so slow? It's already been half an hour before you logged in.
We've already ground our way to Level 2.
Can you stop dragging us down all the time?
Get over here and join the team right now, or don't blame the guild for leaving you behind!"
The message also included a set of coordinates.
Before entering the game, they had all agreed to log in using their old IDs, in case they got separated before the guild system was unlocked.
Seeing this message, a cold light flashed in John's eyes.
In his previous life, the other party had often used this kind of pressure tactic against him, making him suffer endlessly.
Now that he had been reborn, it was the same familiar line again.
He talked about "bringing him along to level up,"
but in truth, he just wanted John to come over and serve as cannon fodder!
"Heh. Exploiting me for one lifetime wasn't enough? You want to do it again in this one too?
In that case…"
A bold idea rose in John's mind.
He put away his smile and quickly headed for the wilderness.
…
Fifteen minutes later,
after arriving at the coordinates in the wild,
John immediately spotted several players hiding in the bushes.
Not far from them,
a Lv.3 Wolf was roaming around.
Clearly, they had their eyes on that wolf,
but were wary of its level and did not dare attack rashly.
One of them was none other than his guild leader, Sein.
The moment Sein caught sight of John from the corner of his eye, his eyes lit up.
"You're finally here. Good. You're an assassin-class player.
Use your stealth to scout out that wolf's stats.
If we can take it down, I'll split half the drops with you afterward!"
There was no Detection skill in the early game.
If players wanted to know a monster's stats, the only way was to estimate them through attacking or getting hit.
Hearing the promise Sein threw out so casually, John sneered inwardly.
"The same old empty promises again.
In my previous life, I believed you over and over, and every single time you only tossed me a few scraps afterward.
You pocketed the lion's share for yourself."
He said nothing, only gripping his dagger as he walked forward step by step.
Seeing this, the guild members, including Sein, all revealed smug, scheming smiles in their eyes.
They felt absolutely no psychological burden about sending John out as cannon fodder.
Sein even found John's movements too slow and started urging him on.
"John, aren't you an assassin? Why are you moving so slowly?
At the early stage of the server, time is everything.
If you keep dragging things out like this, you're holding back everyone's development!
Can you move faster and stop wasting time?"
While Sein was still rambling on,
John had already arrived behind him.
"Why are you coming over here?
I told you to go scout that wolf. Are your ears brok—"
Pffft!
Before Sein could even react,
the dagger with 1000 attack power stabbed straight into his back with perfect precision.
[-1500!]
His pitiful 400 HP was instantly emptied.
His body disappeared on the spot and he was sent back to Novice Village to respawn.
[You have killed another player. Plunder Talent activated!]
[Congratulations! You have plundered the S-rank talent: Universal Synthesis!]
[Universal Synthesis: Can synthesize all items of the same category and raise their rank by one tier.]
[You have plundered 360 Copper Coins.]
[You have plundered Fine Cloth Armor ×1.]
[You have plundered Fine Iron Sword ×1.]
[You have plundered…]
Everything Guild Leader Sein had—
including his talent—
had been plundered clean by John!
"So it really is the same talent he awakened in my previous life: the S-rank Universal Synthesis."
Looking at the new golden entry that had appeared in the talent section of his panel, John's lips curled upward.
In his previous life, Sein had relied on this very talent to gradually build up the guild.
He had even become a regional overlord because of it.
What a pity.
All of that belonged to John now!
With this talent,
even low-tier equipment could be synthesized step by step into top-tier gear in the future!
"You bastard, what the hell are you doing?!"
While John was checking his spoils,
the other guild members finally reacted.
They stared at him in shock and fury, disbelief filling their eyes.
Although players could respawn infinitely during the first three months of the game, each death still cost them levels.
In order to keep up with progress,
they had deliberately funneled most of the EXP to Guild Leader Sein.
That was how he had reached Level 2 in only half an hour.
Their plan had been to let Sein, as the higher-level player, carry the lower-level ones so the whole group could develop quickly.
And yet before he could even truly start playing that role, John had killed him in a single strike!
Only now did those guild members finally realize that novice protection only applied inside Novice Village.
Once you stepped out into the wilderness,
players were free to kill one another.
"Damn it, this guy must have defected to another guild.
Kill him and avenge the guild leader!"
The faster-reacting swordsman-class player roared, raising the greatsword in his hand high into the air.
With a heavy downward slash, he chopped toward John.
But he had badly underestimated John's reaction speed.
At such close range,
the assassin's advantage was displayed to the fullest.
John pulled the dagger back out from Sein's corpse.
A flash of cold steel streaked past—
and a thin line of blood suddenly appeared across the swordsman's throat.
[-1590!]
A crimson critical-hit number lit up.
The swordsman's head and HP flew up at the same time.
Another one-hit kill!
[Plunder Talent activated.]
[You have plundered the A-rank talent: Shift.]
[Shift: After activation, movement speed increases by 20%, and movement range increases by 10%.]
[You have plundered 20 Copper Coins.]
[You have plundered Worn Cloth Armor ×1.]
[You have plundered Longsword ×1.]
[You have plundered…]