Just as Jian Zhi Cang Tian sent his message, a series of ding-ding sounds echoed in Chu Tian’s ears.
Opening his friend system, his friend request list had exploded. He immediately activated the automatic rejection of friend requests.
Then, he cleared the request list, rejecting them all. He had previously set it so only friends could send him private messages. Seeing they couldn't, these people had resorted to frantically adding him as a friend.
Most of them were players from Beginner Village 1314. They guessed that the top player was him and wanted to confirm it.
He then opened the排行榜 (rankings) and set himself to not be included in the rankings statistics.
Player A: "Did you see that level 12 person disappear?"
Player B: "Yeah, what happened? Did they exploit a bug and get banned by the system?"
Player C: "That's possible! Let him show off, ban him for ten thousand years!"
Player D: "I bet it was that Druid. He came to our human beginner village by exploiting a bug!"
Seeing the world chat, Chu Tian cursed inwardly, *Idiots. Don't you know only the top player has the function to hide themselves? This is called being low-key.*
After dealing with these matters, he was too lazy to reply to Jian Zhi Cang Tian. He threw an Appraisal skill at the ghost wolf in front of him—
[Corrupted Ghost Wolf]
Rarity: Common
Level: 15
HP: 2400
Attack: 68-118
Defense: 59-98
Skill: Swiftness (Increases movement speed by 70% for 10 seconds, cooldown 1 minute!)
Description: It is a minion from the dark world. No one can escape its pursuit.
Seeing the monster's stats, Chu Tian remembered that the Ghost Wolf King also had the Swiftness skill. This skill was very annoying. When he first arrived, he had planned to rely on his own movement speed to outrun the Wolf King and defeat it through kiting. It seemed he needed to reconsider.
Since he was here, grinding monsters and leveling up was also good. Although the Ghost Wolf was three levels higher than him, increasing its defense by 1.5 times, with his nearly 500 Attack, he could still break through its defense.
As for critical hits, there was no need to worry. Being three levels higher meant a three-fold increase in critical hit rate. In Tian Dao, critical hit damage was set at 1.5 times, but it still wouldn't be enough to break his defense.
So, he decided to go big…
With that thought, Chu Tian transformed into a leopard and plunged directly into the wolf pack.
Instantly, the wolf pack erupted, howling… howling… the sounds不断响起 (continuously sounding).
He glanced back and saw about a dozen Corrupted Ghost Wolves following him. A few had activated Swiftness and were nipping at his heels.
But they were only dealing minor damage, barely a drop in the bucket for his 1200 HP.
He changed direction a few times, controlling the monster formation, then transformed into his Owlkin form and cast Solar Flare. All Corrupted Ghost Wolves within the 3x3 area were afflicted with a debuff.
Solar Flare burns 35% of the player's Attack power per second, lasting for 26 seconds.
Numbers of damage floated above the Corrupted Ghost Wolves' heads.
-31, -24, -31, -24…
Each tick dealt 24 points of true damage.
Because the Owlkin form provided a 36% defense bonus, he was even less afraid of being unable to break through their defense. However, he couldn't complete his cast times, so he had to stand still and cast Moonfire on the monsters one by one.
Then he transformed back into a leopard and applied Shred to the monsters one by one. He wanted to stack Attack power with true damage. However, Shred consumed 35 energy each time, which was too high. He had to wait for his energy to regenerate after using it three times.
Finally, he gave up on Shred.
Thirty seconds later, the dozen Corrupted Ghost Wolves fell one after another, a series of +300 experience notifications scrolling across the screen.
He checked his HP, which had also dropped by over 400 points.
Even though his defense wasn't broken, with so many monsters, he was still losing more than ten HP per second.
It seemed this Corrupted Ghost Wolf wasn't suitable for this grinding method. He needed to find monsters with slower movement speeds to use this "train" method for grinding.
He rummaged through the corpses on the ground. They all dropped one copper coin each, along with some fur. He didn't mind and picked it all up. Although he carried over 300 gold, even a mosquito’s leg is still meat. Being thrifty made a good man.
When he found a skill book on a giant wolf, his eyes lit up.
Skill books had a low drop rate to begin with, and on common monsters, the drop rate was only 0.01%. He had actually found one!
[Skill Book: Entangling Vines]
Attributes: Upon use, vines grow from beneath the enemy’s feet, entangling them in place and crushing them for 10% of Attack power damage per second, lasting for 10 seconds, with a cooldown of 1 minute. (In PvP, players entangled by vines can attack the vines to break free.)
Vine HP: 10% of the caster's HP. (Vulnerable to fire skills; any fire skill can destroy the vines, ignoring their HP.)
Usable Class: Owlkin Druid
Usable Level: 10
Usage: Syllable (1) + Hand Seal (1)
It was truly a case of getting what you needed when you needed it. He had just been worrying about how to kill the Ghost Wolf King, and with this skill, it was possible!
One syllable, one hand seal, was equivalent to an instant cast. Chu Tian immediately clapped his hands and learned Entangling Vines.
He stealthily moved towards the center of the hill.
Soon, he approached the Wolf King's activity range.
He observed the terrain and found that the usable area was too small. The surrounding area was filled with level 15 common Ghost Wolves. When dealing with the Wolf King, it would be impossible to avoid aggroing them. Although their damage wasn't high, being chased and bitten still hurt.
He had no choice but to clear out the smaller monsters first. He spent over ten minutes clearing out an area in four directions. During this time, he tested the skill and found that he had to cast Entangling Vines simultaneously with the Ghost Wolves' Swiftness skill. Otherwise, once they gained speed, Entangling Vines would be easily dodged.
Taking a deep breath, he approached to within forty meters of the Wolf King, which was the maximum range of his spells. This was the first time in his two lives that he was attempting to solo a Commander-tier Boss without exploiting terrain.
He had used Appraisal on the Wolf King earlier and found its Attack to be over 600, with 34800 HP. Its Defense was decent, only over 200 points.
He cast Solar Flare and Moonfire consecutively.
-1, -24!
Howl… The Wolf King let out a cry and took two steps towards Chu Tian. Suddenly, its hind legs bent and it crouched down.
Now was the time! Entangling Vines!
As the Wolf King stood up, the vines directly entangled its four paws. Simultaneously, a gust of wind flashed around its body.
That was the visual effect of Swiftness being cast.
But at this moment, it could only stand in place, unable to run.
Ten seconds later, Entangling Vines wore off, and Swiftness also disappeared. It could only run towards Chu Tian at normal speed.
As a quadrupedal, speed-oriented creature, Chu Tian could only be slightly faster when he transformed into his leopard form.
Therefore, Chu Tian maintained his leopard form whenever he wasn't casting Solar Flare and Moonfire.
He led the foolish wolf, which only knew to chase after Chu Tian and eat dust, without taking shortcuts, on a merry chase.
Of course, he also had to keep an eye on the cooldown of Entangling Vines. Since this skill had the same cooldown as the Wolf King's Swiftness, he could use it immediately once the cooldown was ready.