Chapter 6 – Attribute Allocation

At a distance of 2m, Chen Mo was within reach. Most people would panic at this point.

When setting a trap while moving, he needed to focus all his attention on the task or the skill would fail.

Chen Mo was as cool as ice. As a hacker, the more critical the situation, the greater the need to remain calm and judge the situation or else he would fail abysmally. This was just a game and if he failed he could try again. The approaching goblins did not give him any pressure.

His strokes flowed precisely and, as the goblins moved a step closer, the trap was complete. Chen Mo threw it at them.

Boom!

The sound of an explosion reached his ears. Two 20+ damage numbers floated above the heads of the goblins!

Furthermore, the steps of the goblins slowed!

At the same moment the goblins’ slowed, the area in front of Chen Mo brightened. He’d successfully escaped the cave!

Without the limitations of the cave, even if the goblins were to catch up with him, he could use Basic Heal and hide behind the two huge rocks in front of him.

Additionally, the last trap’s disabling effect had activated. The goblins could not catch up with him.

Low-level monsters have low intelligence. They are able to chase in a straight line in the cave but when there are obstacles in their path, their stupidity is revealed.

Chen Mo lured the two White Goblins close to the huge rocks. He wanted to make use of the rocks and slowly whittle away at their HP as he ran around it but he discovered that their IQ numbers were bleak. He had brought them to the rocks but instead of running right after him, they hesitated, not sure if they should run to the left or right to intercept Chen Mo.

As it went, they had no chance of catching up with Chen Mo.

The 5 traps earlier had dealt a total of over 100 damage to the goblins. While the goblins were hesitating and running about haphazardly, Chen Mo focused his crossbow and traps on one of them and it was killed not long after.

System prompt: You have gained 30 experience!

“So much experience!”

The white goblin died and Chen Mo looked at his experience bar. It had increased by 20%.

That meant he could get to Level 2 by killing all the White Goblins in the cave.

After getting to Level 2, his attributes would increase by quite a bit. It would be much easier to deal with the goblins then.

A White Goblin was still chasing him but it had just about 200HP left. Two goblins were no problem for Chen Mo – much less one. He did not expend much effort and made use of the obstructions to kill the goblin easily.

His experience bar increased by 20% again. However, this goblin had also dropped 3 coins when it died.

3 coins were a pitiful amount but Chen Mo had nary a penny on him. He picked them up. Seems like it’s really difficult to earn coins in this game – heroes have to die multiple times to get this measly bit.

With prior experience, the next steps were easy.

However, whether he could successfully lure the White Goblins out of the cave and kill them depended on the activation of the disabling effect. This 10% chance was neither high nor low and he had to depend on his luck. Chen Mo died twice before he was able to kill the second batch of goblins.

Players Level 10 and below get no penalty for dying. After killing the second batch of goblins, Chen Mo’s experience was close to 90% and he would level up if he killed one more goblin.

His luck wasn’t too bad when he dealt with the third batch of goblins. He got them out of the cave in his first try.

System prompt: You have levelled up!

System prompt: Your basic attributes have levelled up!

• Strength+3
• Stamina+2
• Agility+2
• Intelligence+2
• Spirit+1

After easily killing the fifth goblin, a white light flashed from Chen Mo’s body. He felt a flood of warmth wash over his body and the HP he lost was refilled.

However, what concerned him more was the increase in attributes. This would affect his performance when dealing with the Black Goblins later.

Looking at his increased stats, he found that the hunter class basic attribute increase was fairly uniform.

Players will have ten attribute points for every level up. These ten points are allocated according to character class and is decided by the system. The players cannot change the points.

Other than the 10 fixed points, players also get 5 points for them to freely add to whichever attributes they want.

So they say. Chen Mo looked at his stats and found that out of the 5 points, only 4 were truly free for him to allocate as he pleased. The remaining point must go to the player’s non-primary attribute.

Stamina is an attribute that all character classes need. Other than Stamina, the hunter’s primary attributes include Strength and Intelligence. In other words, from the 5 points given, one point must go to either Agility or Spirit.

The other 4 attribute points are truly free for allocation. A player can use these points however he wished.

To a hunter, though Agility and Spirit are not his primary attributes, he cannot overlook them. Agility affects the speed of his trap setting and speed of his crossbow wielding. Spirit can affect the loyalty of his pets. Don’t look down on loyalty – loyalty of pets determine whether the pet will follow the commands and its battle initiative. Pets with low loyalty will not help the player much even if it’s powerful.

In addition, out of the 3 primary attributes of a hunter, Strength affects the physical attack of both traps and crossbow. Stamina affects HP. Intelligence influences the attack power of the hunter’s pet.

The most difficult choice was between Strength and Intelligence as these two attributes represented the two different paths of a hunter. If one added Strength, he would embark on the path of a crossbow-man. If one added Intelligence, he would embark on the path of a beast-master.

Be it crossbow-man or beast-master, Chen Mo chose neither. What he needed to address and was most important to him now was traps. Of his 5 points, he added 1 to Agility and 4 to Strength without hesitation.

When he entered the game and first equipped the crossbow, his physical damage was 4~5. With Lightspeed Death and the added 1 point to Strength, it became 5~6. At Level 2, after adding all his points, his Strength was at 11 points and his physical damage rose to 12~13.

According to the data, it seemed 1 Strength point equalled 1 physical damage.

But Chen Mo knew it definitely could not be calculated in that way. If he unequipped his crossbow, his physical damage would instantly become 0. It was apparent that physical damage relied very much and was intricately linked to weapons.

The weapon’s attack power is not directly related to the written “Attack power” but “Basic physical attack power”

However, the specifics could not be worked out just yet.

But, after levelling up, his attack power had an unquestionable increase. His HP had also increased by 40. It seemed like he could now withstand one more attack from the White Goblins.

Chen Mo immediately experimented on the last White Goblin to see how much damage he dealt.

He swiftly set a trap and the White Goblin stepped on it. It went off with a boom.

-43!

A damage number of over 40 floated above the head of the White Goblin. Chen Mo’s damage had doubled!

The increase in damage was not as high as expected though his attack power had increased. Thinking about it more carefully, he surmised that damage to the monsters should have some sort of applicable algorithm, otherwise his pitiful Level 1 physical damage of 5~6 could not result in over 20 damage.

With double damage, Chen Mo leisurely killed the last White Goblin.

System prompt: You have gained 30 experience!

Each White Goblin gave him 30 experience points but this time, his experience bar only increased by 7%. Looks like every increase in level requires much more experience for the next.

The valley still had 40 to 50 Black Goblins in it. Black Goblins are Level 4. Chen Mo calculated that he would reach Level 4 after killing all of them.

Picking up the few coins the White Goblin dropped, Chen Mo ran into the cave.

The bronze chest rested quietly at the end of the cave. Without the obstruction of White Goblins, Chen Mo walked straight to it and opened the chest with a motion of his hand.

System prompt: You have gained the skill book “Quake Trap”!

System prompt: You have gained the equipment “Ordinary Crossbow”!

“Good stuff, as expected!”

Chen Mo perked up.

The chest contained more than he had thought. There was not only a skill book, but also a weapon!