The first stray dog fell, and I hurried over to rummage through its corpse. I found three copper coins and a piece of fur—dog pelt: quest item!

It seems this is the dog pelt that Defense Soldier Mark needs. Things got much simpler after that. After killing each dog, I would sit down to rest for a while. Resting restores health, albeit slowly, but at least it saves money. I doubt anyone can afford potions to level up at this stage.

Before long, I had collected twenty dog pelts. Killing more stray dogs no longer yielded quest items, and I had already reached level 2. My attack power increased a bit, and my HP went from 60 to 80. Looks like each level-up gives a decent HP boost. After leveling up, I got 5 stat points, which I immediately and without hesitation put all into strength. At this stage, there’s no way anyone can carry you; you have to rely on yourself to kill everything. How can you manage without high strength?

I noticed I was getting farther and farther from the village, and more players were showing up to hunt stray dogs. But I realized most of them weren’t collecting dog pelts. Apparently, not many people know about this quest, since that Defense Soldier just paces around the village entrance without a “quest” sign on his face.

I quickly ran back to the village and turned in the quest, only to find that the Defense Soldier was actually quite generous. Killing twenty wolves earned me 80 copper coins. Money is extremely important at this stage. You only get to choose a class at level 10—who knows how much that will cost? Maybe nothing, or maybe a whole gold coin! (1 gold coin = 100 silver coins = 10,000 copper coins)

With my previous experience, I made a quick round of the village, chatting with every NPC I could, and sure enough, I got more quests!

[Quest: Bloody Counterattack]

Quest details: Help the village chief wipe out the wolf pack in Wolf Valley east of the village. Bring the chief 50 wolf teeth! Be very careful, and it’s best to find some companions before you go. The wolves there are extremely fierce—many of the village’s strongest young men have already died to their fangs!

This quest is pretty tough, since you can tell from the quest that the wolves aren’t low-level, and the chief even suggests you form a party. Hmm, I’ll leave this one for now and do the other quests.

[Quest: Collect Tomatoes]

Quest details: Rose has planted a lot of tomatoes on the hillside, but lately wolves have been appearing outside the village. Please collect 10 tomatoes for Rose.

[Quest: Village Defense]

Quest details: Kill the vicious stray dogs outside the village and bring 20 dog teeth to Defense Soldier Mark!

……

Collecting fruit and killing stray dogs shouldn’t be a problem. Killing stray dogs gives decent experience, so leveling up while doing quests is a good choice. That last quest gave 200 experience—killing a level 1 monster only gives 10% of that. Turning in quests levels you up twice as fast as others~

Looking at the players training hard in the distance, I didn’t want to disturb their leveling (mainly because they were obviously a group, and if I tried to steal their monsters and got PKed, it’d be embarrassing), so I circled around half the village and entered the woods from the east. From afar, I could see where Rose had planted her tomatoes!

After killing more than a dozen stray dogs in a row, none of them dropped dog teeth. I was a bit frustrated—was the quest messing with me?

I went deeper into the woods and realized that the dogs I’d been killing were still level 1, but up ahead was a level 3 monster: a vicious stray dog!

Speechless, I grabbed my broken sword and charged in for a head-on strike!

“3!”

The red number reminded me that these level 3 stray dogs had much higher defense than the level 1s. With my current level 2 attack, I usually take off more than five HP per hit on level 1 monsters.

Level 3 stray dogs have 50 HP, so I’d have to hit them 17 times to take one down. Their bite frequency is also pretty high—each bite only takes 2 HP, but by the time I finish off a stray dog, my own HP is already at the limit.

EXP +30!

I squatted down and searched the stray dog’s corpse. Besides 14 copper coins and a tooth, there was actually a tattered piece of armor. I picked it up to check its stats:

Stray Dog Leather Armor (white equipment)

Defense: +5

Much better than my newbie clothes—at least my defense is up a notch. I put it on right away. It’s leather armor, so I’ll still be able to use it when I become a rogue later. On second thought, if I’m still wearing this at level 10 when I pick a class, that’d be pretty pathetic.

With 3 more defense, I could basically fight two stray dogs before needing to sit and rest. Not every stray dog drops a tooth, though. After killing nearly 100 stray dogs, I finally collected 20 dog teeth!

I have to say, the drop rate in “Yueheng” really isn’t high. After killing over 100 stray dogs and reaching level 3, I only got one more piece of equipment—a pair of pants, and they were cloth armor: Stray Dog Shorts, Defense +1, same stats as the newbie pants. Plus, they’re a uniquely styled pair of shorts. I wonder, if I gave such an item to Linda Harris, what kind of expression would she have?