Arthur aimed at the goblin that had already received two hits—the arrow from Point Blank and Tower’s sword slash.
It was the best approach. Focus on one monster and kill it as fast as possible.
With his sword in hand, Arthur activated his Deep Cut skill. It dealt 80% of his weapon damage, meaning 16 damage, plus 10% of his weapon damage every second for 10 seconds.
The real benefit of this skill, though, was the stacking effect. By hitting the target with Deep Cut again, Arthur could stack the bleed up to five times while resetting its duration.
So, with his current Iron Sword that had 20 damage, he could eventually deal 10 damage per second just from the bleeding effect!
"Deep Cut."
A faint reddish glow appeared around his sword as he activated the skill. Arthur struck the goblin’s arm, specifically targeting the one it used to wield its wooden club.
[16 Damage]
When Tower saw the notification, he frowned.
Someone at level 1, who didn’t even have a combat class, was already dealing more damage than him. Sure, he was a tank, but he was still three levels ahead of Arthur.
He was about to say something when he noticed another notification.
[2 Damage]
The bleeding effect!
Even after the attack was over, the goblin continued losing HP every second.
Arthur didn’t stand around doing nothing. Deep Cut had a two-second cooldown, but he could use normal attacks in between to keep dealing damage.
He swung his sword horizontally, hitting the goblin’s arm for a second time.
[20 Damage]
[2 Damage]
It took him around a second to complete the basic attack, so the bleeding ticked once again.
At that point, the goblin died.
[+31 EXP]
[+10 Copper Coins]
The EXP Arthur received wasn’t the same as everyone else in the party.
A party had a 20% EXP bonus, meaning the group received 20% more EXP from every monster killed.
However, that EXP was still divided among the party members.
The goblin gave 80 base EXP, which became 96 because of the 20% party bonus. Divided between four players, each one normally received 24 EXP.
But Arthur was level 1, three levels below the goblin!
For every level below an enemy, a player received a 10% EXP bonus, stacking up to a maximum of 30%.
It was rare for players to fight monsters several levels above them since the difference in strength could be significant, but Arthur had a party helping him—and a class with powerful skills.
The game placed the 30% cap mainly to prevent high-level players from easily boosting lower-level ones.
Not only that, but if the level difference between party members became too large, the game reduced the EXP gained by the lower-level player. The penalty became especially severe once the gap reached 20 levels or more.
It didn’t completely stop boosting, of course, but at least it minimized it.
Anyway, Tower, Suzy, and Point Blank were quite shocked by Arthur’s display.
Not solely because of the damage he dealt, but because of the skill he had used!
They had never seen another player with a bleeding skill this early in the game.
The fight continued, with Arthur using Deep Cut on the remaining goblins and basic attacks while the skill was on cooldown.
Point Blank continued shooting arrows, while Suzy mostly watched the fight, only using Minor Healing once to restore Tower to almost full HP.
After killing the three goblins, Arthur was already close to level 2.
One more goblin and he would reach it.
Before pulling another group of monsters, they decided to rest.
Suzy was a magical class, so her skills consumed quite a lot of mana.
Physical classes didn’t have as much of a mana problem—most of the time, at least—but they could still get tired.
The game had a stamina system. There wasn’t a visible bar floating somewhere on the interface, but stamina was definitely there.
Players had to catch their breath, just like they would in real life.
With training and higher stats, they could endure much longer, but never forever.
While they rested, Tower finally asked Arthur about the thing that had been bothering him.
"What skill was that? It was pretty powerful. As far as I know, no class starts with anything like that. I’ve read about all the starting classes."
And he wasn’t the only one.
Most players had researched the available classes before choosing one.
Everyone stared at Arthur, waiting for his response.
They already knew he was mysterious.
He was the only player they had found inside a blacksmith shop, the only player they had seen riding a flying mount, and the only player who somehow had access to a city.
But none of that necessarily meant he had a special class.
Now, though, they were starting to seriously consider the possibility.
Especially because Arthur was wielding a one-handed sword, something primarily used by Warriors and Paladins among the starting classes.
"You’re not a Warrior because Tower doesn’t have a skill like that," Suzy said. "And you’re not a Paladin either. My friend is one, and I’m sure they don’t have that skill. But you’re using a sword, so... how?"
All three players stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
Arthur wasn’t interested in sharing anything, though.
"Sorry, but I can’t say," Arthur said, scratching the back of his head. "Maybe you do have the skill. Check your skill list again."
"Bullshit," Tower said. "I’m sure I don’t have it."
Arthur simply shrugged.
They eventually stopped asking questions after realizing Arthur wasn’t going to answer them, but all three had already decided they wanted to find out more about him.
Arthur was simply too mysterious.
Anyway, after resting for a while, they pulled another group of goblins and repeated the same process.
Arthur reached level 2 and made it halfway toward level 3 by the time they finally cleared the area.
Only the goblin boss remained.
"Let’s recover all our mana and stamina before we even try fighting this thing," Tower said.
They weren’t exactly confident about winning, even after seeing Arthur’s bleeding attack.
Usually, when facing a boss like this, players expected to die at least once before figuring out the correct strategy.
That was especially true this early in the game, when none of them had fought a proper boss before.
Arthur, however, already knew this goblin boss.
With Stealth and Assassination, he was confident they could kill it.
In fact, while the rest of the group looked nervous and uncertain, Arthur was only excited about the rewards waiting for him.
’I’ll reach level 4 after killing this thing.’
The corner of his lips curled upward.