MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

“That’s weird, how can there be a female player in the odd-numbered Novice Village? Am I seeing things?”

Li Yi logged into the game as his character appeared below his vision.

The corpse of the Wild Boar King had already disappeared. Li Yi looked high and low and he could not find that female player who spoke to him earlier.

“I’m really seeing things…”

Li Yi took off the helmet, shook his head, stood up and walked out of his bedroom after stretching his body.

He jogged in a narrow lane in the forest. He could feel his entire body relaxing as he breathed in fresh air around him.

While he wanted to play the game, he had to train his body as well. He had to take care of his body well since the Nourishment Chamber had yet to exist.

Li Yi received a call from Chen Yang as he was in the midst of his jog.

“Brother Yi. Amazing! You really do know everything from the inside out. I’ve followed your advice and chose a Dwarf Summoner. I’m already at Level 4. Haha. Impressive right?”

“Impressive!”

“This game is extremely immersive. The views and characters are surreal and I can even feel the wind when I run. This is really fun. Oh ya, what level are you at now?”

“Level 8.”

“… Lil Yi, you’re an amazing man but you have the tendency to bluff. I’ve already seen the ranking board and the highest level is only Level 5.” Chen Yang sighed.

“I’m Level 4, are you happy now?”

“That’s more like it…”

Li Yi, “…”

“I’ll talk to you later. I’m going to boost my level for now. Message me in the game if you need me. My name is Tall and Mighty.”

The majority of the dwarf players liked to give their characters ironic names. It’s fortunate that Chen Yang entered the game early because this type of name would be hard to get after some time as they were all over the place.

After Li Yi finished his jog, he returned home to rest for a while before opening his alumni group.

The group was extremely active as everyone was discussing the King of Pantheon. They were discussing how to level up their characters quickly, what class was good, how to obtain their desired weapons, and so on. Hundreds of messages appeared in the group in an instant.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice broke the silence. “Can someone tell me how to get my character back to the Novice Village when she’s lost?”

There were thousands of people inside the alumni group. It would be a complete mess if everyone was to speak at the same time so the group moderators had disabled the voice chat feature a long time ago. Everyone was shocked when they heard her voice.

Li Yi looked at the blinking icon in the group and was slightly surprised.

That was because he found out that the person who spoke was his teacher, Zhang Yan.

Zhang Yan was one of the alumni group’s moderators. Since she was not being barred from using the voice chat feature, she could speak to the group directly.

“Miss Zhang, do you play Pantheon as well?”

“Miss Zhang, what’s your name in the game?”

“Miss Zhang, you can add me as a friend in the game. The alumni group is too messy, I’ll private message you regarding this issue.”

“Miss Zhang, I’m called Hairstyle is Well-kept During PK. Add me and I’ll tell you in the game…”

Hundreds of people replied at the same time and Li Yi’s eyes were dazzled upon seeing so many messages. He could not help but sigh as he witnessed the power of the charm from a beautiful woman.

“I just want to know how to go back to the Novice Village. I won’t be adding any friends and you guys can just tell me right here. Whatever, I think it’s better for me to search for the answer on my own.”

Zhang Yan could not cope with a mountain of replies in that instant and went offline after giving a single response.

“Ugh. It’s all your fault. Why are you guys so excited? I haven’t even manage to add her.”

“You’re the one who is excited. I’m the one who messaged her first, no?”

Another discussion ensued inside the alumni group.

“Say, what do you think Miss Zhang would name her character as?”

“Elegant Beauty!”

“Talented Beautiful Woman!”

“Beautiful and Intelligent…”

“I’m done talking to you guys. I’m going to try and add her!”

“Me too…”

“Let me know if you manage to add her.”

“Hehe, I heard that not only you can get married inside the King of Pantheon, you can even… Hehe. If Miss Zhang and I can… Gah, I can’t stand the thought of it…”

Li Yi switched off the alumni group and laid on his bed and snored his way into his dream.

Although one could sleep while wearing the Virtual Helmet, how could that be more comfortable than sleeping on the bed?

One day in reality was equivalent to three days inside the King of Pantheon. It was due to this lengthened time scale setting which had attracted many consumers who originally were not into games playing it…

The King of Pantheon was very popular during beta testing and it gained traction as the player base grew larger over time. The game had definitely held up its slogan in its advertisement where it would change mankind.

After a good night’s sleep, Li Yi got out from the bed, washed his face, had breakfast and jogged for a round before he wore the helmet and entered the game.

A new Wild Boar King had spawned at a distance as Li Yi had logged in for only five minutes.

He continued with his arrow tactic. He managed to pull the monster even faster as he had prior experience. It took him only five arrows to pull the Wild Boar King to the perfect position.

“Oink–”

“Boom!”

The Wild Boar King was stuck in between the big tree and boulder once more. It kicked its four legs about as it wailed angrily.

[−75]

[−89]

[−48]

Li Yi stabbed the Wild Boar King which was completely in red [Berserk Mode. ATK damage increases by one fold, DEF decreases to 0] repetitively as he looked at the ranking board.

There was no change in the ranking and the number one was still Old Li Flying Dagger, who was at Level 6, 76% EXP.

He was indeed a level booster as he was able to level up to Level 6, 75% EXP when everyone was not familiar with the environment of the game. That could only mean that he had yet to log out ever since the game started.

Other than Old Li Flying Dagger, the rest were around Level 5, 76% EXP.

Li Yi had only taken an hour or two to deal with Wild Boar King.

Naturally, he did not obtain any first kill rewards for killing the Wild Boar King for the second time. As he went to its corpse to take his loot, his luck as a Trash Hand materialized into existence.

[170 Copper Coins obtained…]

[Tattered Wild Boar Skin (Material) obtained…]

[Wild Boar Tusk (Material) obtained…]

…

“That’s all? F*ck!”

Li Yi was in disbelief as he kept scavenging before he cussed.

There was not a single equipment. Furthermore, the Wild Boar Skin and Tusk had yet to be useful at the moment and he had only obtained 170 Copper Coins. He really had taken a big loss this time…

However, on the good side, he had leveled up and was at Level 9 and a half.

“Once I’ve reached Level 10, I’ll be able to learn the skills from the second class.”

Li Yi looked at the remaining arrows in his Backpack and could not help but to shake his head.

Archers were highly advantageous as they fought monsters but they would require to exhaust a large number of arrows. A lot of new Archer players had put most of their money into buying arrows to the point they did not have enough money to buy any equipment once they reached the middle-late game phase. Their attacks were like giving the monsters a back scratch and would instantly die the moment they were attacked by them. They were not even qualified to leech in a team. This made Archer, which was a very potential class, into a publicly-acknowledged trash in the game.

Most of the players had deleted their accounts and retrained their characters and there were very few people who persisted until the very end. Furthermore, there were only a few who had managed to play the Archer class to its full potential.

Naturally, Li Yi who had been reliving his life would not decide to play a useless class to show off his excellence. He understood better than anyone how terrifying the Archer class could be if they had the best equipment and operational technique.

He would have never forgotten that shocking arrow even if he had reset his life.

Li Yi pulled his bow and shot it at the Adult Wild Boars. After killing one of the Adult Wild Boars, he happily let the other three Adult Wild Boars attack him until he died and laid on the ground.

He did it on purpose as he would not drop any item or have his experience penalized if he died before reaching Level 10. Furthermore, he would get a free ride back to the city as well. Why not?

However, accidents often happened when one least expected it. As he fell onto the ground, a beautiful figure appeared under the big tree. She was the female player, Girl without Underwear that he saw before he logged out yesterday.

“A player?”

Girl without Underwear walked toward Li Yi, squatted down and asked him a question.

Li Yi was shocked.

He was about to be teleported back to the city and he immediately canceled it the moment he saw the female player walking toward him.

Li Yi questioned, “Are you a player?”

Li Yi found that his questions were rather rhetorical as he blurted the words out. This was because the player’s name was shown above the female player’s head unlike him as he had hidden his name.

“Can you stand up?” Girl without Underwear circled Li Yi a few times.

“No.”

Li Yi finally understood that this female player standing right before his eyes was a noob. (TL Note: noob refers to a rookie in an online game)

“How did you arrive in this area?”

If a character chose not to revive when he died, the body would lie there forever. Although they were unable to speak, they could still type to chat with the other players. However, this setting would soon be patched in the future. This was because there were many corpses commanding the teams in the Instance Dungeon, greatly reducing the difficulty of the Instance Dungeon. Hence, the System would automatically adjust and update itself and so that the corpse would not be able to type or chat. All they could do was to look at the event unfolding right before their eyes.

In order to protect the privacy of the players, players who had logged in for the very first time would obtain a mask that could block their face. Both Li Yi and Girl without Underwear who was standing in front of him had the masks on.

“I’ve taken a quest to kill some Small Wild Boar but I’m lost. I came here after swimming across a river.”

“Swimming across a river…”

If Li Yi was not in his Corpse State, excitement would have written all over his face.

The Novice Village in the King of Pantheon can be expanded infinitely as all of the Novice Villages were in a map similar to an Instance Dungeon.

The Novice Village Number 1 was definitely nearby Novice Village Number 2, 3, 4, and 5. As more players logged into the game and the player base grew, more Novice Village could spawn where they could be expanded indefinitely.

There would be a river segregating each Novice Village and it would be very highly unlikely for a new player under Level 10 to swim across this river.

The player’s Health would decrease once they went into the water before they learned the skill Dive. A typical new player under Level 10 would usually be able to swim halfway across the river before he or she drowned and died.

If they did not die from drowning, it would be incredibly hard to avoid the monsters above Level 10 which lurked in the water. Once they reached the shore through incredible hardships, they would, unfortunately, realized that the NPCs which were not from their Novice Village would not give them any quest at all.

“Your class must be a Warrior, yes?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Girl without Underwear nodded.

Only the infamous Warrior which boast high HP would have the chance to swim across the river.

“It’s very easy for you to return back to where you come from. All you need to do is to hit those Adult Wild Boars and you’ll be able to return.”

“That easy?”

“Yep.”

Li Yi then chose to resurrect himself.

“Hey, don’t go yet.”

Girl without Underwear looked at Li Yi’s corpse disappearing and started to panic as she still had a lot of questions to ask him.

“I’ll be able to return if I hit those Adult Wild Boars.”

Girl without Underwear muttered to herself as she walked toward the group of Adult Wild Boars slowly…

As one of the Adult Wild Boars noticed her presence, it rushed toward her angrily. Girl without Underwear was terrified as she turned and attempted to run away from it. However, her speed was nowhere as fast as compared to the Adult Wild Boar and the latter caught on to the former in an instant. Then, the Adult Wild Boar used its long tusk and jabbed it into her buttock…

“Ah!”